Many firms have had the steam coming out of your ears this year. We highlight the prize failures

Another year of SOS pleas to my consumer column, Your Problems, has drawn to a close, and it seems churlish not to acknowledge the companies who have worked so hard to earn a mention in it.

Over the past 12 months I have discovered why you can’t book a flight if you’re Indonesian, and how a rail company can justify charging an extra £16.60 for the privilege of walking between two connecting stations. I’ve busted the myth that insuring your no-claims bonus prevents your premiums rising if you make a claim, and exposed the travel company which changed a customer’s wife into a man before demanding £124 to change her back, and investigated why doing your laundry can burn your house down.

It’s frequently claimed that big business skimps on customer service. Twelve months of reading through your woes proves otherwise, for the hours and ingenuity multinationals invest in customer experience are limitless. Those creative reasons why they can’t refund you for goods that never showed up, or compensate for a flight that never flew, take time and effort to conjure. And the more persistent the customer, the more effort these companies expend on rebuffing them.

Take, for instance, the data back-up website which told a customer that her backed-up data was irretrievably lost because of moves to “enhance customer experience”, or the mobile phone firm that was unable to help customers whose phone numbers it had given away because they no longer had, well, a phone number. The really cunning ones delay complainants for so long that they can then declare that too much time has elapsed for them to be entitled to a resolution. Or, in the case of one travel firm, they acknowledge a complaint with an automated message stating it has been deleted unread.

When I first began a consumer column 18 years ago, my mailbag was dominated by householders wrestling with the novelty of bulky home computers that turned out not to work, or flailing in limbo as suppliers of the newly privatised utilities kidnapped each other’s customers. Now computers tend to work fine, so long as you don’t expect reliable broadband, and energy firms have left off kidnapping to concentrate on extortion. Since several of the “big six” suppliers upgraded their computer systems, many customers have found themselves in one of two camps: those sent multiple demands for random, unsubstantiated sums; and those begging in vain for any bill so they can pay their dues.

Telecommunication companies, it seems, have a shared weakness: they're not good at communicating, unless it’s a bill

Lately, though, it is mobile companies and budget airlines who have caused you sleepless nights. The former have an irreproachable record when it comes to selling handsets and taking your money. The discord starts when customers expect those handsets to function, because service providers do not always regard your monthly payments as an entitlement to service. Telecommunication companies, it seems, have a shared weakness: they are not very good at communicating, unless it’s in the form of a bill. Budget airlines share a similar blind spot: because their fares are cheap, they seem to reason, passengers shouldn’t assume they’ll get to take off.

While the companies that enrage you might have changed (anyone remember Cable & Wireless?), the offences remain broadly similar. It’s not the fact that the goods you buy are faulty, or the service intermittent, it’s that you have to endure several hours of Vivaldi on hold before facing the brick wall of corporate indifference when something goes wrong.

So, without further ado, here are my 2016 awards for outstanding customer service – that stands out for all the wrong reasons:

The one you most love to hate

A disconnect with Vodafone over my sister’s mental illness Read more

Vodafone has really put itself out to earn this one. So manifold are the horror stories I’ve received that Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, seized on them to help its investigation into the company’s unique take on customer service. The result was a £4.62m fine for failing customers. Ofcom’s discovery that customer service staff hadn’t been trained in what constitutes a complaint would have come as no surprise to the couple whose house purchase fell through because Vodafone had wrecked their credit record with a phantom debt, or to those who discovered that non-existent service or terminal illness are not deemed sufficient reason for their contracts to be cancelled.

Most profitable apology

A round of applause for Thomas Cook, the company (in case you didn’t guess) responsible for charging that customer for giving his wife an unrequested sex change, and telling him that his complaint had been deleted unread. In addition, it also charged him twice for his booking. In contrition, after he turned to us, Thomas Cook upgraded him to premium class – then debited £603 for the privilege. It explained that this is how its system works for processing complimentary upgrades and that he would be refunded – which he was eventually.

Coyest customer service

Opodo, the online travel agent that takes your money then, according to many of you, goes to ground, could fill my weekly column by itself thanks to the numbers who find their budget break is unexpectedly costly. That might be because the website showed an error as they completed their payment, so they began the transaction again and were charged twice. Or it might be because the company forgot to tell them that their flight had been changed or cancelled so they missed it (or, in the case of one reader, it announced the departure had been changed when it hadn’t). Or even because a booking proved non-existent.

Bureaucratic logic

When an elderly customer asked P&O to return his deposit for a cruise, because after three months his booking had not been confirmed, the company declined. Why? Because “human error” was to blame for its lack of service and therefore a refund wasn’t due.

Most ingenious money spinner

Getting the silent treatment from Europcar over my hire car accident claim Read more

Car hire companies will have to share this one thanks to their habit of debiting customers’ credit cards without warning days after a rental agreement ends to pay for mysterious and expensive damage. With special mention to Goldcar, however, which refuses to hand over the keys until customers who have already bought comprehensive insurance through a rental agency pay handsomely for Goldcar’s own policy. Also to Hertz whose High Wycombe franchise used a biro to alter the payable excess from £1,000 to £3,000 then claimed that a scrape to a hire vehicle cost precisely that sum to repair, although no itemised bill could be produced.

Most successful vanishing act

Homebase’s too-good-to-be-true sofas. Scores of you took advantage of its spring sale which offered a £100 credit on top of a 75% discount, but were left sitting on the floor when the orders failed to turn up. For some, the first you heard that the transaction had been cancelled was when you noticed a refund on your bank statement. Homebase blamed a “software glitch” which caused it to order stock that didn’t exist.

Best loved legal dodge

“Extraordinary circumstances”. This is the scientific catch-all employed by airlines to get out of paying statutory compensation to passengers whose flights are cancelled or delayed. EC Regulation 261 obliges them to stump up unless the delay is caused by extraordinary, unforseeable events outside their control – so in the airline world all events from late incoming flights to weather are unforeseeable. Courts have thrown out these excuses one by one, but that hasn’t deterred airlines from using them to rebuff all but the most persistent passengers.

A special commendation must go to easyJet which told a stranded honeymoon couple that its policy of overbooking each flight in case of no-shows was “outside its control”.

Most benevolent retailer

It’s seller beware as eBay’s buyer guarantee is exploited by scammers Read more

Ebay – if you’re a buyer, that is. You can purchase a designer top, swap it for a pound of beetroot, claim you were diddled and get your money back. You can buy a bike, race it up and down a mountain range and return it three weeks later claiming a fault. Ebay will refund you. Although this magnanimity is less attractive if you’re the seller left to pick up the tab. Ebay explains that its refund policy, which seems blatantly weighted against sellers, is to make buyers feel “comfortable” shopping in its marketplace.

Most degrading upgrade

Npower, Scottish Power and Co-operative Energy are all contenders after updated computer systems generated wildly inaccurate bills or, in many cases, no bills at all. However, The Money Club should be commended, helping itself to multiple debits from subscribers – an error it blames on a software upgrade. One person was relieved of 29 sets of £98 over five years.

■ If you would like to nominate a company for a specific prize please contact me (your.problems@observer.co.uk), and keep your letters coming in. If we can’t change poor customer services we can at least help shame them.