Hey everyone,
I recently thought today of companies that I actively avoid and the reasons why.
Harvey Norman is one for keeping JobKeeper payments and Nestlé due to multiple reasons.
Please explain in the comments which companies you boycott. An explanation and link to relevant documentation/articles would be good!
@Miss B: Sorry. How many Queenslanders have died in the past 6 months.
Really, state politics Vs lives.
Are you for real?
@mdavant: Did you boycott NSW when they scoffed and made snide remarks earlier in the year during Victoria's outbreak when Victoria asked for more vaccines? Or are you a hypocrite?
@Miss B: I don't see how somebody else's actions make me a hypocrite. Do you have any evidence that I scoffed or made snide remarks? Perhaps you are thinking of the premier?
So is it a rush to the bottom. IE because NSW premier scoffed at Victoria, that makes it right for qld to do this to NSW? Are we in kindergarten?
I advocated for Victoria for covid vaccines.
I did not single you out as a hypocrite( I don't know if you are or not), so I cannot see how you can make that assumption about me.
I also believe in helping others irrespective of a so-called border!
Obviously you have not much experience with respiratory related deaths to be pushing political lines. I have had experience with respiratory deaths and they are terrible.
How many Queenslanders have died in the past 6 months?
national cabinet plan
An oxymoron if I ever heard one.
Lol. How dare they come up with a decent response to covid threats…
Scotty is the man with access to the vaccines. Why aren't you boycotting him?
Yeah him too!
It is very easy to have a negative opinion on a state which has been doing more than its fair share of processing foreign arrivals innit.
lol. ok gladys.
Are you going to boycott NSW too? Since Gladys also said there's no way she'd share vaccines with VIC when they had an outbreak just before the Sydney one.
Already answered this.
But the short answer is that when playing with lives, the behaviour of premiers has been disgraceful. Especially QLD and WA
Sure, shut borders, I get that. But to spruik how smart you are and not loan vaccines to fellow australians who are dying is unaustralian ( to use that stupid word)
I must say in defence of Gladys, there were SFA cases in victoria when she declined it. It is a different story in NSW and Victoria now.
I find the debate on Ozbargain about it distasteful and immature.
Seriously. Innocent people are dying, and a lot of people here are dancing with glee.
At the end of the day Australian state governments want to be re-elected and reflect the interests of their population. Reassigning vaccines won't be a popular move for the residents of the 'gifting' state.
NSW's inability to curb the infection numbers means the risk of it spreading to other states is high. If it does jump states and the population is largely unvaccinated due to gifting vaccines it will be the equivalent of political suicide.
It isn't like there will be handouts of more vaccines either if the gifting state requests support. Other state governments would use it to justify not sending any.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't (by people who don't vote for you).
Allianz, why? World war 2 activities.
It's probably time to move on from that one
Throw in IBM then.
And Toyota
Scotty doesn't know
The Potato?
My wallet pretty much boycotts all the brands.
Kogan.
Gigabyte
Fitbit - my Ionic died after 1 year and 2 weeks and had several software issues that seemed to be common.
The first ionic i got was terrible and then maybe 3 months ago they sent a replacement. Works fine.
I hope i am not jinxing myself here.
I agree on Fitbit. My Dad bought a couple of their higher end units, and they all failed miserably.
Their firmware updates have killed 3 units. The last device now yells and screams there's an update, but we refuse to install it, in case it screws the device.
My Ionic died yesterday. Contacted Fitbit and they offered me a free replacement, even though it was bought in 2017.
Boost juice. Because I thought Janine Ellis was a fake stuck-up b* when I watched her on shark tank and don’t want to make her anymore money.
Jb Hifi. Very rarely the cheapest prices anymore, salespeople come across as friendly and quirky but mist are secretly vultures
Bunnings - will never honour their find it cheaper we’ll beat it by 10% because they always have some bs way of distinguishing between their products and another store’s products
Apple
Due to their shoddy business practices
Yes but mainly their complete lock down on 3rd party repairs n parts
Ben and Jerrys.
Disgusting company that panders to the woke crowd and pretends to be a virtuous company.
They ran ads showing parliament burning because of climate change on instagram.
While at the same time they ship their ice cream from United states to Australia via refrigerated transport
on massively polluting ships and/or planes causing massive amounts of unecessary pollution that is the cause of climate change.
Shipping ice cream around the world is extremely excessive when it could easily be made in Australia for a fraction of the carbon cost.
Total disconnect between actions and words.
Not to mention Victoria is lucky enough to have several companies making much higher quality icecream locally with local ingredients.
Not to mention Victoria is lucky enough to have several companies making much higher quality icecream locally with local ingredients.
Which brands are you referring to? Just curious.
Messina, Piccolina, other smaller ones - Primavera, Pidapipo, Meno Zero, Zero Gradi, probably heaps more I haven't been to.
I'm told Poco in Port Fairy is alright, but it's a bit of a drive from the city…
Yes, but these aren't retail brands. You don't get them in supermarkets. Do you?
@virhlpool: Don't think that's particularly relevant. You can occasionally find Piccolina in independents, Dairy Bell is around too but it's nowhere near the quality (or price) of those others.
Bottom line - if you've got $12 to be spending on a pint of icecream, other than convenience, I don't know why you'd go to the supermarket given the prevalence of much higher quality alternatives all over the city and suburbs. You can get handmade Messina (up to 5 flavours of your choice) delivered to your door for basically the same $/L.
For all I know there might be an incredible local product in the supermarket, but I haven't seen any. Again, that's not where I'd look for a premium product (and if others are the same, that would likely explain the lack of such a thing).
Ben and Jerry's is meh ice cream anyway. Their political affiliations are just another reason to avoid.
Remember when ice cream companies just made ice cream? There was once a simpler time.
Yet idiots still pay $10 for a mouthful of their ice cream???
@zombrex , not saying your wrong…but Chocolate Fudge Brownie is simply amazeballs. The next runner up is Connoisseur Cookies and Cream.
The $12 price tag for one of those tiny tubs is enough for me to boycott them.
i boycott any company that charges more
I hate Harvey Norman but if i can get a great deal (rare, prolly a price error) that makes them make less money or none why not!
stick it up to him
Chairman Dan
All companies that have an IVR that basically starts with “we are currently experiencing a high volume of calls” which you hear whatever day or time of day you call. Just an excuse to have less agents taking calls and set you up to wait.
I feel like ever since Covid started, a lot of companies have turned that on and just kept it on as an excuse to provide a permanent poor service
As someone who used to set these systems up for companies, you are correct.
You could be the first in the queue and you'll still get the message.
P&G (Proctor & Gamble) because of their stupid Gillette ad
They've done much worse than that
Why? not worth my time & money
Nespresso and Vodafone due to negative customer experiences. Will never use either again.
vodaphone went from the go to store for a new mobile to not even considered. They must have burnt a lot of people other then myself.
Yeah they stressed me out pretty hard core for a few months. I had a contract with them, had shit reception so when it was over I went in to cancel it. Told them why and they told me that they had just put a new tower near my house and it only works with newer phones so if I got a new contract I would have the best reception. I said that I don't want to risk it and was going to switch to telstra and they offered me a month for free and I could return the handset at any time during that month if I didn't have good reception. I took them up on it because it was risk free. Got home, had no reception, returned it the next day. They then debited my bank account close to $3000 and said that I didn't return the phone and had to pay out the entire 24 month contract. Took me close to 3 months to get my money back calling them every other day.
Aramex (formerly Fastway Couriers)
A company I would prefer to never deal with again in my life, they take weeks to get something delivered from the east coast to the west coast.
Currently have a delivery with them (sent by amazon) thats been sitting in their Perth depot for the last week with no movement…
I wish I could boycott them… :(
But its never the guy purchasing that gets a say :(
You can. Write back to the company and get them to boycott.
Do international shipments get to choose before they come into Australia?
I don't like my chances writing to a huge multi national company who only interest is the cheapest quote .
Dell, absolutely rubbish QC on every computer and monitor that i used
QC? Quick Charge?
Quality control
Bought a Dell prebuilt, hated it.
Happy with my monitors though.
Dell's domestic offerings (laptops and desktops and other components aimed at the home consumer) are the worst of the worst, the Latitude range is amongst the best, writing this on a 2010 Dell Latitude E4310 that I use every day, have been recycling ex company and comercial IT for years and have not found a more robust (on average) range than the Latitude range.
Telstra, since they convinced my elderly parents to "upgrade" 100/2 Telstra cable to 50/20 NBN for $20 a month more. Then they tacked on something called Platinum support which cost them an extra $15 a month. The icing on the cake was signing them up to a new 24 month contract after they had already been customers for over 10 years.
I completely understand that my parents would have accepted the terms and conditions, but to do it under the auspices of a telemarketing call stating "accept these terms or your internet will be cut off", it was total corporate bastardry.
Yep. Telstra did the same to my mother. They charged her $150 a month for a basic landline and 10 GB wifi dongle she never used. This went on for years.
Kogan due to issues with warranty and customer service.
Grill'D due to how they treat their staff.
Youfoodz - racist cofounders https://www.9news.com.au/national/youfoodz-founder-and-fianc…
Any asian or "asian fusion" restaurants owned / run by white people
Fair enough. Do you have the same problems with non-Yiddish fish & chips or Vietnamese bakeries selling meat pies?
I guess pasta is right out…
Are you actually trying to understand in good faith? If so have a read of
https://ireneshiangli.medium.com/8-totally-achievable-ways-t…
and
https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/So-you-re-white-and-own-an-Asian-restaurant-16244853.php
What is the maximum acceptable white % for mixed race restaurant owners?
Are you actually asking to learn in good faith or asking to debate? If you want to be educated have a read of https://ireneshiangli.medium.com/8-totally-achievable-ways-t…
https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/So-you-re-white-and…
Against my better judgment I actually read both of those utter dribble-fests (listening to the second was paywalled), and neither addressed my question: What is the maximum acceptable white % for mixed race restaurant owners?"
Why do people like you always talk about 'getting educated' but never have anything of value to offer other than the same old non committal diatribe.
Most of them employ Asian workers, would you prefer they are out of work?
I prefer they are owned and run by Asians :). My money, my choice. Don't like my choice? I don't a give f
Any asian or "asian fusion" restaurants owned / run by white people
The irony is killing me. How are you calling out the racism of others, then proceed to say something so blatantly racist.
Choosing to not go to a place of business due to the race of its owners is cookie cutter racism.
FWIW, I'm Asian - food is just food, people of any race can learn to cook good food from anywhere around the world. To be honest, I despise a lot of the purity culture around food.
If I want Asian food I do not want it to be cooked up in a restaurant owned by Chris Lucas, or in some Agent Orange themed restaurant. https://www.timeout.com/melbourne/news/a-vietnam-war-themed-…
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/coronavirus/chris-lucas-society…
The business of food is not just food. Boston chef Irene Li gave white owners of asian restaurants eight actions they can do to show up for the asia community.
https://ireneshiangli.medium.com/8-totally-achievable-ways-t…
If a place were to do all those things I’d consider it, but even with a never ending list of restaurants in most major Australian cities, I don’t see any that live up anywhere near to Irene’s standard, nor would I go out of my way to find them when there are so many Asian-owned asian restaurants.
The “I don’t care about race” sounds nice in theory but being truly anti-racist when it comes to the business of food is much more complex.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/asian-c…
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it and you see racial inequity in the food business everywhere: https://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/2021/08/17/whats-real-co…
If you want to really learn about being anti-racist when it comes to the consumption of asian food, then read the above. I won’t believe that any asian person could come away and look a Chris Lucas style asian restaurant the same way ever again.
This just sounds like hot nonsense to defend your racist drivel.
If you want to really learn about being anti-racist when it comes to the consumption of asian food, then read the above. I won’t believe that any asian person could come away and look a Chris Lucas style asian restaurant the same way ever again.
Honestly, I have no idea who Chris Lucas is and I genuinely don't care. I think most of the hospitality world is filled with egotistical, pompous morons.
@p1 ama: His definition of anti-racist requires a considerable amount of mental gymnastics to understand.
When normal people think anti racist it’s self explanatory. It’s guided by mortality understood and shared between cultures.
His definition stems from CRT where it comes from a “beautiful language” approach - it normalises the use of certain terminologies to be in line with convoluted logic to further an ideological goal. Basically it uses traditional racism as a means to be “anti racist” very hard to wrap your head around.
All in all you’re not talking about the same thing when you say anti-racist.
This is how people get scared of debating this because you will be called anti anti racist if you call it out.
You only need to look at Mao in China to see examples. That was more class though not race as the target.
I’m no expert on this so will probably not be completely correct.
@p1 ama: I didn't say I would not ever eat at any white owned restaurant. I said that if I want asian food, I'm going to be spending my money at an asian-owned place.
You don't have to like the way I phrase the argument. If you want to learn rather than debate then read the articles above, they are written by asian chefs (Irene Li), asian food critic at San Francisco's daily paper (Soleil Ho), and an SBS food article that quotes asian chefs and restaurant owners. Take their words and ingest them however you like.
The takeaway for me at least is clear: Why should I ever spend my money getting asian food from a white owned asian restaurant in a city like Melbourne? The asian-owned asian food options are endless.
People love to boycott big corporations in favour of local small businesses because implicitly they want to support the little guy. I'm extending that principle, because whether we like it or not the business of food is not fair. It is stacked heavily against asian migrant owned businesses. White people like Chris Lucas have a huge leg up. For the longest time they've been able to set up (profanity) themes like Agent Orange color Vietnam war themed bar https://www.timeout.com/melbourne/news/a-vietnam-war-themed-…
Label it how you want, so it fits into your nice black and white world view, but the world is full of grey. Directing my asian food cravings budget towards restaurants owned by asians is not morally equivalent to the Youfoodz owner racially ridiculing asians in Singapore.
Thanks for sharing. If you haven't seen this article, I think it does a good job of explaining the issues as well: https://theconversation.com/why-celebrity-award-winning-chef…
@chcake: I haven't read it before, but it makes sense. There's a huge difference when the Chief critic at a newspaper is asian vs white. See SF Chronicle (Soleil Ho) vs The Age (Gemima Cody) and the food reviews, and writing that each pumps out. It makes a huge difference to the fortunes of a restaurant if they get coverage in the major daily paper of the city.
Your racist and done even know it.
Comparing a Banh Mi to an American style burger is stupid.
Would I get an American style burger at a bakery? The Banh Mi probably costs more than a meat pie available at the same bakery. The price doesn't just come from the food but the venue and marketing around it. Bakeries are just typically a cheaper food.
I know an African American who owns a Mexican restaurant in Australia, staffed mostly by Peruvians, should I boycott that too because his not Mexican and was only raised in Mexico? Is that Mexican enough?
By your logic we should get stickers with 6 points and mark the non racially authentically owned restraunts and boycott them.
My white Italian accountant owns a Persian restaurant after his Iranian wife died, should we put a sticker on him and boycott him too?
How do you feel about restaurants specializing in non-<insert_race_name_here> cuisine, run by <insert_the_same_race_name_here> owners? Do you have equally strong opinion about everyone, or is it pointed only in 1 direction?
Regardless of an answer, you have some issues to work through. You should get out more to learn to like people.
Used to boycott STA travel after purchasing from them and having an agent leave me high and dry in a travel emergency when I was on the other side of the world and needed help with my ticket. She stopped answering my emails, hung up on me multiple time and refused to come to the phone when another agent answered it and asked her to come talk to me. Luckily Covid took care of the company.
Apple
Dyson
Netflix
Disney
Fastway /Aramex courier
Uber Eats
Facebook, Instagram, TickTok
Any brand with politburo/CCP representative in the board
BNPL category (After Pay, ZipPay etc)
Ben and Jerry's
Most mainstream media with few exceptions like The Age
Most commerical sport with few exceptions like Boxing Day Test
Brands that resort to virtue signalling are not preferred
Good heavens. What a list. Do you live in a cave?
Google is conspicuously left off this list. Why?
Google comes ahead on cost benefit. Pixel, Google One, YouTube Premium, Maps, Photos etc are high value. Minor irritations with Google over YouTube censorships, woke employee culture etc. But overall comes on top. They are also ahead on privacy (transparency) and security than most people give them credit for.
Branded drinks in restaurants and cafes because they are overpriced
and
Fast food when there are no discounts
Username checks out yeah yeah some wise ass is going to comment
It's not a boycott if you are still buying fast food when it's discounted.
Temporary boycott?
Branded drinks in restaurants and cafes because they are overpriced
Neah, not a boycott as the other poster said. You just an OzBargainer like me who refused to pay the hiked price but will jump on deals :P
that I am thanks for clarifying
Gillette because of their horrible advertising campaign a while back. My best friend boycotts them as well. Way to annoy your target market of men….
Also anything Uber. Evil faceless corporation IMHO.
I am in a minority and still don't understand that why so many people were offended by their ad. Having said that, I tried to find alternative to them due to cost but sadly went back to Gillette as I found nothing compared to them.
U2?
Maybe it's because of words like "some already are" (acting in the right way)… How about "most already are" and should not be judged by the actions of a minority… Which incidentally is what we say about every other race, religion and gender
Gillette added to my list.
Schick Hydro 5, I find it better than Gillette. Was sceptical as I had only used Gillette, happy once I switched.
If you are talking about razors, I must admit I was amazed by Aldi's - their blades seem to be made of adamantium.
I'll never forget the specials on their razors after that campaign, lmao.
So many people jumped on that boycott, as it hit Facebook hard. I think the chant was get woke go broke or something.
I found it quite hilarious.
Harvey Norman and Murdoch Media
Job Keeper scammers such as Nick Scali, Harvey Norman etc.
Then companies like Jaycar who blantantly rip peoples designs off and resell them
Any who's adverts annoy me, and any of the old "too big to fail" companies i.e. Telstra
@mdavant: Queensland are getting outbreaks from NSW too. NSW love the state vs state crap, they've been making snide comments about Vic through the whole pandemic.
I'm not sure what the point of getting the handful of vaccinations from WA is if 500k (next most from this allocation was 175k) doesn't satisfy you. There was also another 180k (Vic/QLD got 150k too due to outbreaks) and another 50k (only NSW). I don't know if you've noticed, but every other state/territory has had cases leaked from NSW.
Vic isn't asking other states to give up their vaccines, because everywhere else needs them too.