Business Blunders of 2010
January 10th, 2011BNET recently published a follow on to its Business Blunders of 2010 (to see last year’s list see Business Blunders of 2009). The list was amusing again this year. Some highlights:
Mistake #3: Cruise Visits Haiti Beach
Despite the chaos gripping nearby Port au Prince, Royal Caribbean Cruises forges ahead with plans to drop vacationers at its private beach in Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that killed more than 200,000. An article in Advertising Age says the company’s brand could suffer “lasting damage from the visuals of mostly white vacationers frolicking in the sun … while only 60 miles away thousands of people are fighting over food and water.” A headline in the New York Post sums things up even more succinctly: “Ship of Ghouls.”
Mistake #5: Dell’s Customer Service
Documents from a lawsuit against Dell unsealed by a federal judge in November reveal that, after shipping nearly 12 million potentially defective computers equipped with faulty capacitors from 2003 to 2005, the company had provided its sales force with instructions that included pointers such as “Don’t bring this to customer’s attention proactively” and “Emphasize uncertainty.”
Mistake #20: Fraudclosure Gate
As officials from all 50 states investigate shortcuts taken by banks in repossessing hundreds of thousands of homes, it becomes clear that the workers handling the foreclosures were often less than qualified. Among other telling details, a Wells Fargo employee testifies that she was signing 300 to 500 foreclosure documents per day without bothering to read them; a firm hired to review documents for Citigroup and GMAC is found to have outsourced the work to companies in the Philippines and Guam; and at JPMorgan Chase, in-house hires were so wet behind the ears that they were referred to internally as “Burger King kids.”
Mistake #22: AT&T Touting its Network Coverage
AT&T sends out a “Special Message” to its wireless customers, thanking them for their business and highlighting the company’s $18 billion investment in its network. Unfortunately, the e-mail also contains a link to AT&T’s Facebook page, which its loyal customers visit in droves to, um, return the thanks. “AT&T is the worst feature of the iPhone and the reason I want to throw mine against the wall on a daily basis,” writes one fan. “I’m only sticking out my contract because I don’t have the money to pay a termination fee,” says another. “Service in Alabama sucks!” says a third, adding: “Seriously though, f### you!” Gushes yet another: “I hate ATT!!!!!!!!”
Mistake #27: Tony Hayward Handling the Gulf Crisis
Two months and roughly 3 million barrels of spilled crude into the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster—and fresh off criticism for saying “I’d like my life back” after the accident had cost 11 workers theirs—BP CEO Tony Hayward adds insult to injury by spending the day off the Isle of Wight aboard his $270,000 Farr 52 racing yacht. Stunned reactions to the sailing holiday from environmentalists, U.S. government officials, and Gulf Coast residents range from “insulting” to “the height of arrogance” to “man, that ain’t right.”
Mistake #28: Dow Jones Sustainability Index
In June, at the height of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP is removed from the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, a measure that tracks the financial performance of firms hailed as “the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide.” Three months later, after a “thorough analysis of corporate economic, environmental, and social performance,” BP’s replacement in the index is announced: Halliburton,the scandal plagued war contractor once run by global warming denier Dick Cheney. Halliburton had been responsible for cementing the seal of the well that had catastrophically blown out at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
There are other good ones in there. To see the full list, click through to Business Blunders of 2010. Some funny stuff!
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