Shoddiest of the bunch: Which? reveals the companies behind the biggest consumer letdowns of the year
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Which? is naming and shaming the companies responsible for the
biggest consumer letdowns of the year in its third annual Shoddy
Awards, as it challenges firms to do better for their
customers. To be nominated for a Shoddy Award, companies had
to fall short on criteria such as: failing an industry standard,
offering poor value for money, making false claims or regularly
underperforming in the consumer champion's research. After
Which? experts nominated...Request free
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Which? is naming and shaming the companies responsible for the biggest consumer letdowns of the year in its third annual Shoddy Awards, as it challenges firms to do better for their customers. To be nominated for a Shoddy Award, companies had to fall short on criteria such as: failing an industry standard, offering poor value for money, making false claims or regularly underperforming in the consumer champion's research. After Which? experts nominated contenders from their testing, customer surveys and investigations from the last year, a judging panel from across the organisation selected this year's Shoddies, which include: Sugary snacks: Kiddylicious Kiddylicious sells snacks aimed at babies from six months up to children aged four to five years old. It promotes its products as being allergen free, convenient and promoting self-feeding but research from the University of Leeds, which was funded by the Which? Fund, found that the majority of its snacks are high in sugar and marketed in misleading ways. Many are more akin to sweets, with several classified as confectionery under World Health Organization guidelines. These snacks offer little nutritional value and for babies under a year old, they risk displacing breast or formula milk in their diet. Exercise at extortionate prices: David Lloyd David Lloyd has been awarded a Shoddy for its poor value for money. In the consumer champion's most recent gym survey, Which? members rated it just two stars for value for money. The consumer champion found that the average ‘Plus' membership costs £131.50 a month - and in some locations, platinum memberships can cost £259. Rip-off merchant of the year: Ticketmaster Ticketmaster's pricing practices for ticket sales to the Oasis reunion tour may have breached consumer protection law for two reasons. Firstly, some seated tickets were labelled as platinum, and sold for nearly two and a half times the standard ticket price. It was not sufficiently explained that there were no extra benefits for buying these seats. Secondly, customers were not notified that ‘in demand' pricing would be used - meaning fans had to queue without knowing exactly what they would be paying. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigated and agreed that these practices might have broken consumer law. Which? is calling for the CMA to make sure that Ticketmaster refunds the customers who paid more than expected. Dodgy deals: Sports Direct Which? believes some of Sports Direct's uses of Recommended Retail Prices (RRP) as reference prices may be breaking the law. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) says an RRP should reflect the price a product is generally sold at across the market. However, the consumer champion's research found examples where no other online retailers were selling at the RRP price shown by Sports Direct. Often, their prices were the same as Sports Direct's selling price, or lower. This could mislead shoppers about the true value of a product, and the savings they are actually making. Many brands sold by Sports Direct are owned by its parent company, Frasers Group, and for a majority, Which? could not find them for sale anywhere else online besides Frasers-owned retailers. The ASA says that “if a marketer is the only seller of a product, and so has set the price themselves, it's unlikely to be acceptable to refer to the price as RRP.” It is unclear if this is the case here and if it applies to brands owned by the same parent company. Which? is calling on the CMA to investigate these pricing tactics. Biggest collective failure: home insurance companies Which? has collectively awarded all home insurers a Shoddy as this market ‘leads' on declining claims according to Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) data. The latest FCA data from 2023 shows that over a third of buildings insurance claims were declined, while over a quarter of claims made on combined buildings and contents policies were turned down. While not all providers are terrible, standards are currently so poor that this is the first year that the consumer champion has not awarded any Which? Recommended Provider endorsements since 2010. Which? is campaigning to End the Insurance Rip-Off and calling for the FCA to take tough action against any insurance firms falling short of required standards. Excluding teenage customers: Tesco Clubcard Supermarket loyalty cards have become essential to cutting the cost of regular shopping. However, some retailers have age, address and digital requirements that limit accessibility to these savings. Tesco has the largest market share of UK supermarkets, and its age restriction for a Clubcard is 18, compared to other supermarkets where it can be 16, or even younger. This blocks access for younger shoppers to thousands of discounted prices. Dangerous domains: AliExpress, Amazon, Ebay, Temu and TikTok Online marketplaces are failing to prevent the sale of unsafe goods from third-party sellers on their sites. In 2024, Which? listed an unsafe plug-in heater that appeared identical to one recalled as far back as December 2022. The consumer champion is disappointed by Amazon, eBay, Etsy, TikTok Shop's failure to prevent the heater being listed for sale. More recently, Which? found dangerous ‘energy saving' plugs widely available on sites such as AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Temu and TikTok Shop. These devices make false energy saving claims and fail to meet basic electrical safety standards. Which? is calling for the government's Product Regulation and Metrology Bill to be followed up with a duty so marketplaces have a clear legal responsibility to stop dangerous products appearing on their sites. Soft on scams: Booking.com Booking.com came out best in Which?'s accommodation booking site survey - with the highest customer score. However, when things go wrong, the situation is less rosy. The consumer champion has received dozens of complaints about scam messages and seen hundreds of online reviews from people who say they have been scammed. This Shoddy is awarded specifically for Booking.com's approach to minimising and handling scams. A recent Which? investigation found that Booking.com does not run proper identity checks on accommodation hosts. It has been far too easy to hack its messaging system and the reviews system too often shows positive reviews, rather than recent ones that warn a property is a scam. When contacted to say a scam has occurred, Booking.com will chase your money, but it will not necessarily refund you itself. Cancel culture: British Airways For the first time, British Airways was joint-bottom of Which?'s long-haul airlines survey. It did not fly particularly high in the consumer champion's short-haul rankings either, landing far nearer the bottom of the table than the top and only scoring two stars for value for money, seat comfort, food and drink, and cabin environment. Separate Which? research in May 2024 named it the worst-rated airline for customer service over the previous year. It also cancelled far more flights than many of its rivals - 2.55 per cent of all flights from May 2024 to April 2025. As other airlines look to innovate and improve, the consumer champion is awarding British Airways a Shoddy and challenging it to raise its game. Hat trick of horrors: Virgin Media Poor customer ratings and an expensive price rise sees Virgin Media awarded a Shoddy for the third year running. Virgin Media was the worst-ranked provider in Which?'s annual broadband survey, with poor ratings for customer service and support. This year, Virgin Media also introduced the biggest mid-contract price rise for broadband-only customers of £3.50 a month, compared with the £3 a month announced by most other providers. The company has also been under investigation by Ofcom since 2023 following customer complaints that Virgin Media is making it difficult for them to cancel their services. This case is still ongoing. Bundled contract baddies: EE Mobile EE used the new Ofcom rules on mid-contract price rises to levy a £4 a month annual increase for bundled contracts, which include both a phone and Sim. No other network is doing this and the next highest rise is £1.80. Mobile providers say they need to invest in their networks, which could be an argument for increasing airtime call, text and data prices but the phone cost is fixed at the start of the contract. Which? also suspects bundled contracts are being offered when customers fail the credit check for a Flex Pay contract to pay for the phone and airtime separately - so while this increase may only impact a small number, it could be a significant cost. Prone to breakdowns: Range Rover Evoque plug-in hybrid
The Evoque became Land Rover's fastest selling car ever after its launch in 2011 and is beloved by celebrities but if it breaks down, it is likely to be off the road for some time. In Which?'s 2024 car survey, this plug-in hybrid spent the longest amount of time off the road for repairs of any car. When faulty, it spent more than 20 days in the shop – well above the average of 4.8 days - with some owners unable to drive their car for nearly a year.
Botched bots: iRobot Robot vacs After spending hundreds on a robot vacuum, owners would expect to be able to get it going, then sit back and relax. However, Which? testing found robot vacuums can be temperamental, often do not follow app instructions, and in many cases, are not particularly good at vacuuming. In this underwhelming market, iRobot makes the two worst-scoring models that the consumer champion tested.
Harry Rose, Which? Magazine Editor, said: “Our third annual Shoddy Awards call out the products, services and companies that have fallen short and let consumers down over the last year. “Consumers rightly expect high-quality products and services for their money. All the companies named and shamed in this year's Shoddy Awards need to up their game and offer people the value for money they rightly expect.” -ENDS- Notes to editors: Research To be nominated for a Shoddy Award, companies had to fall short on criteria such as: failing an industry standard, poor value for money, making false claims or regularly underperforming in the consumer champion's customer surveys or lab tests. The consumer champion's in-house experts nominated some of the biggest letdowns from their testing, customer surveys and investigations from the last year. A judging panel from across Which? then selected this year's Shoddies. Links to relevant research for each Shoddy below. David Lloyd: https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/gyms/article/best-and-worst-gyms-rated-azhqg5g2z1B6 Kiddylicious: https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/the-healthy-baby-foods-that-are-full-of-sugar-a7PpB5O2Mwwz Sports Direct: https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/dodgy-pricing-tactics-at-sports-direct-may-be-breaking-the-law-ajikA1s0WjDi Home insurance: https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/does-your-home-insurance-define-storms-unfairly-at8wa7q2inFI https://www.which.co.uk/campaigns/end-the-insurance-rip-off Tesco Clubcard: Aliexpress, Amazon, Ebay, Temu and TikTok: https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/how-we-easily-listed-an-illegal-product-on-online-marketplaces-a8cJp4R3hhAX Booking.com: https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/what-went-wrong-with-booking.com-aYOyv4Q7Ua2D British Airways: https://www.which.co.uk/policy-and-insight/article/airline-companies-customer-service-who-is-failing-consumers-aTfz97X93uRd https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/airlines/article/best-and-worst-airlines-a5EhC8N851et Virgin Media: https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/broadband/article/broadband/best-broadband-providers-aIIx34f51krz Range Rover: https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/most-and-least-loved-cars-for-2025-abSjZ8G6IaZ8 iRobot vacuums: https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/robot-vacuum-cleaners/article/how-to-buy-the-best-robot-vacuum-cleaner-aD8i64c224SY |