ThisBusinessSucks

This
Business
Sucks

We point out the many ways brands have taken a wrong turn and the one way they can repair their reputations—and own their sh*t.
No matter how good your products, services or intentions are, nobody’s perfect. And the sooner you recognize that, the sooner you can use it to your advantage. So without further ado...

Current winner

Ticketmaster
When Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment merged in 2013, it created a ticket distribution monopoly — something a “free market” is designed to prevent. And with botched presales, price gouging and a fake ticket scandal, consumers quickly learned how the concert cartel would behave with precious little competition or oversight.

Runners
up

Despite their increasingly glaring differences, conservatives and liberals agree on at least one thing: the FBI sucks. The intelligence and law enforcement entity is meant to protect American citizens. But with opaque practices and shadowy motives, the real concern becomes, “Who will protect us from the FBI?
High fashion constantly pushes the limits of how we present ourselves to the world. In its ideal form, it’s an often ostentatious art that inspires pop culture. Spanish luxury outfitter Balenciaga has traditionally been a provocateur—but a campaign that seemed to promote pedophilia exposed their taste as despicable, not boundary-defining.

Winners featured in 2022

We hate to say it, but there’s more where that came from... In fact, there’s no shortage of companies behaving badly—and our past winners prove it. Find out how other brands have screwed up, letting down their employees, customers and communities.
December 2022
bad business Winners
These days, the “Grand Old Party” (GOP) conducts itself more like a (bad) business than a governmental body—and this is by design. The party lists itself as a business on sites like Glassdoor and Indeed, which makes sense given their continued prioritization of corporate fealty over Americans’ well-being.
Twitter has been a cesspool of hate speech and harassment for years. But somehow, under Elon Musk’s brief tenure as its leader, the social media platform has further declined.
Last quarter’s Bad Business Awards winner received the distinction for hiking up prices and airing transphobic comedy specials. The ante has been officially upped, as the streaming giant, “The Crown” aside, continues its downward trajectory by attempting to soften the reputation of a cannibal (!).
September 2022
bad business winners
Netflix may have won the early battles, but they’re losing the streaming wars. Recently, they upset their customers by hiking up prices and featuring programming many found tone-deaf. The stock price dive-bombed and they’re bleeding subscribers.
JPMorgan Chase became a household name after participating in often-illegal business practices that led to the 2007-2010 mortgage crisis. So did the resulting $13-billion penalty teach the financial behemoth the value of ethics of profit? Of course not.
The last bad business recipient on our list is Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company for all your commercial, defense and space exploration needs. Unfortunately, they can also satiate any desire you might have for financial wrongdoing and faulty aircrafts.

Eligibility

We love calling brands out on their sh*t as much as the next person…but only if we have a good reason for doing so. To determine our Bad Business Awards winners and runners up, we scour the web to figure out which brands are most getting on peoples’ nerves. Once that’s done, shortlisted companies are ranked based on:

We do this using their Trustpilot and Better Business Bureau ratings, Indeed Work Happiness scores, CSRHUB and MSCI ESG ratings, and other metrics. The brands with the lowest average scores across all three of the above categories wind up here.

The best way to avoid landing on this list? Take the criticism your brand receives to heart, respond authentically and keep asking for more feedback. At Vox Populi Registry, we believe .SUCKS domains can help with this. Every company will face the wrath of disgruntled employees, customers and competitors at some point or another—but the successful ones have a strategy that helps them use it to their advantage.

Scroll to Top
Get in touch
If you have any questions, please do not hesltate to get in touch with us
Support email

Get in touch

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us

SUPPORT EMAIL
REPORT AN ABUSE
Our Hours

MON-SUN 24/7