The list is highly subjective, obviously, but here’s the thinking behind it:

24/7 Wall St. editors reviewed a variety of metrics measuring customer satisfaction, stock performance, and employee satisfaction. This included total return to shareholders compared to the broader market and other companies in the same sector in the last year. We considered customer data from a number of sources, including Consumer Reports, the MSN Money/Zogby customer satisfaction poll, ForeSee’s Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction Index, and the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index. We also included employee satisfaction based on worker opinion scores recorded by Glassdoor. Finally, we considered management decisions made in the past year that hurt company image and brand value from marketing research firms BrandZ and Interbrand.

And here’s the list:

1. J.C. Penney
2. Dish Network Corp.
3. T-Mobile USA
4. Facebook
5. Citigroup, Inc.

Seeing J.C. Penney on the top of the list makes me sad. I started going to J.C. Penney for the basics—socks, t-shirts, that sort of thing—when they didn’t back down from the Five or Six Moms boycott, and I liked what I saw. I liked that someone was trying to re-imagine the big box retail store, even if not all the ideas worked. Wall Street does tend to punish the different and the new, so this list isn’t all too surprising. But I especially hate that the Five or Six Moms will claim this as a victory for their homophobic cause, against all evidence to the contrary.

19 replies on “What Are the Five Most Hated Companies in America?”

  1. I just did some shopping at JC Penney yesterday. They continue to have great deals on workday basics, and I hope people start liking them again soon. Would hate to see them go out of business.

  4. C’mon people: Bank of America. They’re the real rulers of this country: the reason you are poor, the reason I went to war, the reason Obama never does as he says he will.

    I would much prefer this same list that instead says, “Top 5 companies everyone should burn to the ground.” Because hate without action is just posturing.

  5. Yeah, Comcast and BoA easily. I’m staring at a comcast ad right now, on this page, and it’s infuriating.

    I’m really shocked to see J.C. Penney there too. Not because it’s great, but because there are so many worse companies out there.

  8. How Comcast and AT&T managed to evade this list is beyond me, unless they have a special lifetime achievement for hated companies exemption.

    T-Mobile isn’t great, but they’re the least worst of the carriers in terms of customer service. JCPenney is absolutely great. I appreciate that they don’t play games with their prices, like Kohl’s “Buy 5 and get 3 for 44% off” nonsense.

    The other three companies can burn in a fire.

  10. Portland Streetcar, Inc.

    A representation of the mismanagement of public funds and misplaced priorities right in our own backyard! Dressed up like a transportation project, but just another additional subsidy to developers who would have built out their projects without the streetcar because of all of the other subsidies available!

  13. I’d say Big Gold Sacks … I mean … Goldman Sachs, Chase, and the rest of the “Too-Big-To Fail’s” that saddled the world economy with over 400-quadrillion in derivative fraud, while covering their ass by paying themselves trillions in secret, interest free loans from the Fed (with the full protection and complicity of government) are at the top of my list.

    People should be lining up outside Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon’s estates with torches and pitchforks, but unfortunately that that will never happen as long as the heads of these transnational, “vampire squid” banking cartels sit in positions above governments, instead of inside a prison cell.

    Spindles would strongly urge everyone to read the most recent article by the excellent Matt Taibbi titled “Secrets and Lies of the Bailout”. My only criticism would be his implication that the Federal government are merely stooges to the whims of the banks instead of active participants in the fraud.

    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/…

  16. If your stock is doing well you can’t be that hated? That’s some bullshit methods right there. Consider who is conducting the study. 24/7 Wall St. I’ve never heard of them but their byline is “Insightful Analysis and Commentary for U.S. & Global Equity Investors”

  17. DamosA – because Walmart doesn’t actually effect most of us. Remember those Black Friday protests fizzled, that hatred is dead. I can just not shop at Walmart.

    For example: I don’t use Citigroup or Wells Fargo, but because of their collective actions, they’ve bankrupted a huge portion of the world. Additionally, 95% of the people connected to The Mercury’s servers are connected via Comcast. They have a virtual monopoly and their service sucks.

    But I can agree, Walmart has singlehandedly fucked over more people than JC Penny had in total shoppers last year. Certainly a Top 10.

  19. Comcast and the Portland Water Bureau.

    Both extremely expensive monopolies (the place in NE Portland I live does not have DSL through CenturyLink) with poor quality of product (no fluoridated water – what is this, Dr. Strangelove?).

    All the big banks crashed the economy, so they affect me negatively, but indirectly. And Walmart is pretty easy to avoid, especially because there isn’t one near me.

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