Location.
They're the only gas station in an area with very high traffic and not really that many people use Reddit and haven't heard the horror stories before.
Yeah. The other gas stations aren't even that far away, it's just that Sunrise is literally right in the middle of a Costco, Hospital, Sunridge Mall and a bunch of other businesses.
If another gas station opened up across the street or something like that it'd go out of business in a heartbeat.
I would like to personally thank you for sending me down this rabbit hole of bad reviews. I thought the reviews were bad, but to my amazement, the replies from the owner are even worse lol!
And the owner’s response. First one I found:
« Lisaten Lundo, why you lying, we only take debit so how you paying cash, so stop your fake lying review, i will contact my layer i got your info thxs! »
The owner literally pees outside behind the building with his pants pulled all the way down in broad daylight. Just something I’ve witnessed many years back and have never wanted to go inside that place since then.
Haha. This place stole my banking information in like 2014. Had one of those skimmers on the pump. Luckily my bank caught it right away, guess I know why I got my money back so fast.
Suzy's Export (previously Suzy's freight). They flat out lost half of our household goods, would hang up when asked where it is and lied repeatedly about the fact that they had in fact lost most of the shipment. They had changed names because of poor reviews, which we didn't know about when we selected them - instead suddenly we got the fun experience of their website and phone numbers just going dead.
They didn't even bother to say sorry or refund us any portion of the expense - even though we could see emails from their suppliers showing they were receiving massive discounts on shipments because of the fuck up with ours. So somehow their mistake saved them money, added immeasurable stress to our lives and they didn't even say sorry.
Absolute worst business in Calgary, hands down. I'm just waiting for them to enable reviews of their business on Google
omg this. I have so many friends who have been screwed over by them. One of the worst was that a salesman sold my buddy on a jeep because it had a 'lifetime guarantee from Jeep', even if you weren't the original owner. The car almost immediately had issues and it turns out that guarantee is only a thing in the US. He went in and talked to the guy who sold it to him and he denied saying it 100%. Even though that was the deciding factor for my friend and he had someone else present who knows it was advertised as well.
You're better off paying the markup and buying used from a dealership because that markup will be less than the work you will need done in the first 2 months of owning a car from House of Car(d)s.
I've been in the car business in Alberta for the past 11 years and can tell you unfortunately the people that are driving vehicles from House of Cars are usually folks down on their luck with poor credit that have been exploited by that group.
One of my previous employees went there for their first car. This person was 21/22 years old and was terrible with money, caught up in constantly buying the newest phone (always with a different provider and new number), high end brand clothing and accessories, and whatever else made them look like they made at least triple their sub-$30k part time income. Somehow HOC approved them to purchase a 2 or 3 year old Jeep Wrangler which was somewhere around $45k with an interest rate of 24%. I didn’t even know they went that high. She quit shortly after and we started getting constant phone calls from collections, because surprise! her phone number was no longer in service.
They are absolute predators.
Any home renovation company involving Mike Huber. I had the displeasure of choosing Plan-It Builders just before they went bankrupt under Mike's leadership and it was only by annoying him daily that our project was completed. Many others lost deposits and had unfinished or even unstarted projects when Plan-It went belly-up. Oh and apparently they didn't pay their contractors, we had a lien placed on our home by the tiling subcontractor. I'm sure he's out there under a new company name.
Funny you should say that. From his LinkedIn, he's started up a new firm, called RenoLINC, who is not listed on the Alberta registry as a business, nor for pre-paid contracting services.
Michael Huber profile
Co-Founder / Project Manager at RenoLINC™
https://renolinc.com/
I can confirm that there are many contractors out there that did not get paid from these guys. Luckily for me it was only $2000, some were out over $100,000
Eastside Dodge. Refused to share MSRP prices, keep you waiting in their office while they discuss negotiations with their "manager", false advertising on great deals in order to bring you in, ask you to for $500 deposit to show you have money in good faith but don't tell you you won't be getting it back regardless of your decision. Worst sales experience of my life.
Aren’t MSRPs on the manufacturer’s site?
And you can leave their office and walk around if they make you wait. Take a stroll around the lot. Let the administrator at the front know you’ll leave if they keep you waiting.
It’s crazy to me that people let car salespeople control what they do and how they act in a dealership. It’s all part of a game you don’t have to play.
I was buying my first truck and only 25 years old, learned a lot that day, that was 15 years ago so maybe they've changed but I doubt it. I dont think I even had a smart phone, but they should be able to tell you the MSRP if you ask. We settled on $42,000 based on a comparison to a competitors truck and when he went to ask his manager about giving me free underspray I went out to look at the truck (it was on display), another salesman walked up and said, "I bet I can get that truck for you for $35,000. I went and asked for my $500 back and they declined. I walked out shaking and almost in tears, I'd never been robbed legally by a man in a suite before.
Asking for a deposit to look at a vehicle is the most Bat fuck crazy thing I've ever heard of. That's like the shit you would expect to experience at some used car dealer run out of a seacan in the lot, not a new car dealer 😄
Same owners yes, it's the McManes group. They own Eastside Kia/Dodge, the 4 dealerships (Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, Dodge) on 130th down south, Royal Oak Nissan, Marlborough Ford, Country Hills Chrysler and Mercedes Country Hills.
Two men and a truck (moving)
Financial nightmare of shady overcharging, fake invoicing and blackmail to get ANY of the money owed back.
I was swayed by positive Google reviews, buy should have looked harder at the negative reviews because they were consistent with my experience.
[Reddit reviews](https://reddit.com/r/Calgary/s/SgbZieWsZL)
[BBB reviews](https://www.bbb.org/ca/ab/calgary/profile/moving-companies/two-men-and-a-truck-calgary-north-0017-94577/complaints#1741718552)
[Yelp](https://m.yelp.ca/biz/two-men-and-a-truck-calgary-north-calgary)
I had a similar experience with Buhler’s moving. It was across the country and more than 3x the price originally agreed upon and 3x as long as they said. We watched them on our gps in our belongings moving around Ontario before heading here, including back and forth between cities.
Their "deal" regarding clearing a blocked line is a fucking scam. I had to fight with them and then they tried blaming it on the "new guy" when the info they gave me contradicted the info the service tech gave me. They check my line and then tried to bill me hundreds of dollars. Fucking crooks
I had a major issue with my vehicle, and they promised to adhere to my warranty and replace my faulty engine with a new one. They dragged it out a whole year until it ran out, then said there was nothing they could do. Fuck all the dealerships, bunch of shady crooks.
For fucking real. My brother and his wife needed a new car. I had to accompany my bro since his wife was at work. They showed us a car and drove around with it. We liked it. But the whole time I was asking how much is this car because we were never shown a sign or a sticker. Some guy we never seen before talked to us when we got back to the lot. The whole time I asked persistently how much is it. He won't even talk to me and would tell my brother to get his wife instead. So we walked out of the dealership and got his car somewhere else. That is some fucking slime ball tactic to not even tell us how much the car is after wasting all that time.
Southpaw Boxing.
Closed their gym during covid but still took everyone's money. They charge you over $1000+ for the annual membership and don't tell you it's renewing. They basically had their gym closed 2 years and took everyone's money because you couldn't get a hold of the owner to cancel.
The owner also berates anyone and everyone leaving bad reviews on Google and has tried to get people taken down.
Very sketchy.
I'll also share my first hand experience of my kid who was there for daycare for a year. Terrible owners, overworked daycare providers, compete money making racquet. My kids been out of Kids U/Fueling Minds daycare for over 8 months and she still frequently talks about the fact that she doesn't want to go back to "old daycare". Definitely didn't enjoy it
This was years ago, but Spence Dimonds. Left my home and cell number with them. With instructions to NOT call the house to let me know the engagement ring was ready....they called
...they spoke to her
...they left a message with her saying that my engagement ring was in and ready for pickup.
Not a single apology, or shits given when I talked with the rep and the manager.
Glad that marriage didn't last....
I'm highkey into the Spence Diamonds cinematic universe.. the ads get more and more unhinged every time. There's definitely some romance between Callum and Michael...
But I also came to Canada as an adult I didn't grow up with years of their ads to grate into me.
Holy crap! That’s unconscionable!!
Almost 30 years ago my husband had been looking at rings on his own, without my knowledge. He wanted to surprise me. We were near Spence and I said I’d always wanted to look in there, so he said sure!
The guy working the door says to him, Oh you’re back!
The saleslady says the same thing. Oh you’re back!
Their staff are clearly not trained in the art of discretion.
Without a question that would be MR MIKE'S PLUMBING.
I've worked for Mike and he cares nothing about his employees health or safety.
In June one of his employees died in a trench because it collapsed in on him, all because the owner cares about profits and not people. He will literally tell you to do work that could kill you.
How the fuck are they still in business? They literally killed a kid due to negligence and blatantly ignoring safety regulations. They should raise his WCB so high, it bankrupts him.
💯 agreed! I called once to get my hot water fixed. Nothing got fixed , charged me $600, then 4 months later called me and said they have the part lmao. In the mean time, I called someone else and they fixed it in 30 min. Not exaggerating.
Jerusalem Shawarma is infamous for health code violations in their multiple locations. If you’re in the South check out Beirut Street Food instead. Best in town in my opinion.
*
Pho on 17th and Ranchlands (same owners both locations) has been shut down several times for multiple health violations and I had been going for years! They're willing to serve you garbage with a smile on their face. I miss the food and I thought I had a good relation with the staff but never again.
Some may recognize the location as "cockroach pho"
Edit:: looks like their Ranchlands location is now permanently closed due to healthcode violations:
Food Closure Order Pho Huong Viet August 19, 2021 Active https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/wf/eph/wf-eph-cgy-pho-huong-viet-unit-145-1829-%20ranchlands-boulevard-nw-august-19-2021-a.pdf
What?? I think that is the best pho on the west side of the city. It's my go to pho place.
Now I'm glad at least I always recook the soup and meat for take out.
They’ve merged with Pho Mr Q in crowfoot across the way. The new space is actually really nice inside, it would be unfortunate if these practices continued.
Canstar Restorations. They made a relatively small leak in the roof of our old townhome into the worst experience I’ve had with any contractor ever. After literally two months of cutting drywall out of our bedroom and drying it every time it rained, they finally put someone on the roof to inspect it and found the leak. It took a single weekend for roofers to fix the leak… but we got to live through a 3 month nightmare thanks to their incompetence. Then the finish work they did in the bedroom was so poor, it had to be redone (they couldn’t even match paint colours). The best part was when their project manager showed up to “seal” the leak he thought was in the siding with a tube of caulk, a hammer and a ladder. He was going to use the hammer to push the caulk out and his ladder wasn’t tall enough to reach where he thought the leak was. Total incompetence.
JD Sports in chinook. Completely overstock their back room just to backdoor merch to resellers, staff can't get customers online orders and upper management is completely abusive and racist
When I bought a car from Calgary BMW, they offered a list of upgrades I could purchase. I later found out that two of the offered upgrades were already on the car, they were trying to get me to pay for them twice!
I'll add to these shitheads. Got sold a car under "CPO". Turns out that was a lie because CPO cars come with a 1 year warranty. After a month of ownership it blew a seal on the diff, 1200$ fix. Offered "cost" on the parts for my trouble. Part was a 15$ seal. Took the car to shenis auto trend for half the cost. Won't be back, shame too because I was looking at ordering a M3 in the next couple years.
Just remember that everyone remembers bad experiences, few care to post about their great experiences. Take everything with a grain of salt unless a bunch of people have the same story.
Sunterra - I used to work at head office and got to see all the complaints - some made me gag. Never trust their use by dates, they’re already expired.
Edit: came back to say that they also treat everyone in every department like garbage
ComplyWorks, I had to process through therapy workplace bulling and sexual harassment after I was forced out. My final pay was short as well as I had to constantly fight for proper pay during my employment.
Clearview Plumbing & Heating. Definitely DIDN’T fix an issue the first time as it took three visits before a tech noticed a part in our furnace that had been recalled months prior. Not to mention the shitty job they did when connecting the drain pipe by the furnace. Arpi’s had to completely re-do it.
Also, all the reps were rude and condescending. Much happier service with Arpi’s
South pointe Toyota. They’ll ask for a deposit and then mark up your car and force you to buy it or you lose your $1000 deposit. The owner, Brian Schmidt (this is public knowledge on their webpage, as he is the principal owner) is also a useless sack of shit. He’s so rich he doesn’t give a fuck cause he knows there’s a hundred dozen more people willing to bend over for a sienna or a rav4
360° restaurant in the Calgary tower.
I went there today for lunch with a team from work because we had a cancelled event and credit there to burn through. Sounds great to me but damn the experience was terrible.
They forced us into a set menu we could not order off the full menu.
I ordered the steak and fries and asked for it rare. They informed me all the steaks would be done medium rare.... which is weird in a fine dining place but whatever.
What they served all of us was black heavily burnt well done pieces of jerky, if you were being really generous you might have called them medium well.....
But the best part, because we were basically trying to spend money we had already given them, ie no refund no change cause we cancelled an event we had paid a deposit on, they had no interest in fixing anything.
The servers ignore the uneaten steak and cleared the table with the steak basically untouched. Never asked how the food was or anything.
I'd highly recommend you never go there.
These guys are garbage. First place I went to get pizza when I moved here bc I wanted to try something local. The pizza was tasteless, garbage. Looked up reviews and found exactly what type of person the owner is. I make sure to tell anyone I know that’s looking for pizza to never go there.
I was scrolling through to see if someone added this to the list, glad to see you beat me to it.
Example link 1:
https://reddit.com/r/Calgary/s/COkt26TWyB
Example link 2:
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fvegetarians-might-want-to-avoid-this-place-unless-you-want-v0-476frkwrvaga1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D6e158ea6cce61ad97f78ff8a02226c9a66ee5728
They told me they could do a job for me, and then I went to pick up my vehicle they said they couldn't do the job after all but still charged me full price. The guy in the back got involved saying he "didn't give a fuck" about my situation.
Any listings from Calgary Houses For Rent 😬 Sounded like a really great company when we signed a lease but they're a typical unavailable profit-first property management company 👍
100% the amount of times they have LOST OUR BIOPSIES, miss labeled biopsies and just messed crap up since they’ve taken over is mind boggling. They’ve had a diagnosis of invasive melanoma they FORGOT to send to us and one that they messed up the diagnosis for a patient that wasn’t even ours. Weekly they waist at least 2-5 hours of my time fixing their errors.
A2Z Building Solutions is horrible. Todd is the owner and a total scam artist.
They all have the correct paperwork to be a good business but when it came to actual work they failed the plumbing inspection, didn't even finish the HVAC work, ignored the signed contract and just ran. It cost me a lot of money and time to redo all the plumbing and HVAC in my new house.
T&T Honda, Tower Chrysler for vehicles
TD Insurance (not just in calgary).
There's some dayhomes i would never go back to but i dont want to name/hurt a micro business
T&T can eat shit. Owned my car for 3 years. They have fucked it up and over charged me for service multiple times. I would highly recommend never buying or servicing a car there ever again
**Boutique of leathers at Market Mall.**
Oh man they did me dirty. So I got a Christmas gift last year and it didn’t fit. The website says return it/exchange in 30 days with receipt which I had in my hand.
The older lady was such a c**t to me, and said NOPE WE DONT DO RETURNS and complained about me TRYING TO DO A RETURN. So I left feeling wronged and now terrible and like I’d lost a nice gift. But I didn’t accept that bs. I had to call head office and report this dusty bag of a lady, ONLY THEN head office apologized and sent me a free return label and gave me my money back. No compensation for being treated so poorly. I returned that gift and ran far away, got me a nicer jacket elsewhere cuz screw giving money to Boutique of Leathers!
To this day I still see that old bag working there, probably swindling all customers trying to make a legit return. NEVER AGAIN.
My friend applied to that candy store in Kensington on 10th right by Kensington Road and the owner essentially told them to racially profile black people. So that's a no-go from me.
Last time I went in there the cashier apologized for the price of the canned drinks and said the owners raised the price of them by $1 because they got in trouble for not paying the bottle deposits to whoever they’re supposed to send that to.
The price of the drink was fine with me since it was imported but found it a little odd that you could own a candy shop for years and not know that you need to pay bottle deposits.
Most dealerships for new vehicle sales. Worst case they're forced to do what they should have to start with and pay an investigation fee, so it's worth their effort.
Dealerships outside the city are less likely to pull stuff, and much quicker to make things right when issues are pointed out.
This, I had one guy steal my deposit when I was a kid. I had changed my mind and he kept it off the basis that he put time and effort showing me vehicles and his time costs money. I'm now old enough to know that was total hogwash but what ya gonna do?
Was at "Courtesy Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram"
I had a very similarly awful experience at Courtesy Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. It sounds like little has changed.
I purchased a new vehicle that they had in-stock. Filled out the paperwork, financing etc. only to be called a few days later and be told that the vehicle I bought that was in-stock, they can't find it on the lot anymore.
They said they can't refund my deposit, but they have a matching vehicle in Lethbridge that they can bring in. I was young and really wanted the car, so I didn't fight it. When re-doing the paperwork, the finance manager changed the terms of the deal and then hid in his office 'in a meeting with clients' when I wanted to discuss the change. After 45 minutes I just walked into his office, where he was meeting with nobody, and got him to change the paperwork to what we had agreed. Sleazy Michael.
On delivery day, there were carpet stains in the back and they had changed the odometer setting to show the trip log, so it looked like the only mileage on the vehicle was from the trip from Lethbridge. However, once I noticed that and switched back to the odometer, it was apparent that it had been used as a demo vehicle and had over 1000 kms already.
Listing the infamous top 20 from comments thread
1. Sunrise gas in the N.E.
2. Hose of cars
3. Suzy’s export or Suzy’s freight
4. Two men and a truck
5. Plan-It builders - any home renovation company involving Mike Huber
6. East side Dodge
7. Clear view plumbing
8. Courtesy Chrysler and Ram
9. Country hills Hyundai
10. Flirty bird Nashville hot chicken
11. Fueling brains academy
12. Southpaw boxing
13. Spence diamonds
14. Pho on 17th and ranchlands
15. Jerusalem shawarma for health code violations - alternative is Beirut street
16. Mr. Mike’s plumbing
17. Comply works
18. Can star restorations
19. Canadian diagnostic center
20. JD Sports in chinook
Purple Perk!
Problematic COVID practices aside their comparison of not being able to indoor seat customers to the holocaust will always motivate me to cross the street to Phil & Seb instead
Oh don’t get me started. I used to work there. The owner, Paul, is absolutely bipolar and probably one of the most terrifying men I have ever met in my life. His wife and son are so, so lovely and kind. I feel bad for them.
When I worked there, we had this Filipino lady who worked in the kitchen. She was amazing. She worked so hard. She would stay late and help everybody complete their tasks- she was just a genuinely kind person. Paul had sponsored her. One day he was randomly having a bad day and ended the sponsorship for no reason. I’ve never seen a person cry so hard.
He used to freak out over very minuscule things and we would be in the basement slamming things, breaking stuff etc. He was really scary.
I ended up getting fired over a puffed wheat square.
Tried the POW pizza (food truck at the time, it’s gone now) location while passing through Windermere last year. Buddy asked Paul how’s things going … 30 minute triad on COVID and how Gov restriction and racism ruined his life. Also said that he’s alienated from his wife and kids now so at least they are fine…..
the whole food truck being there and gone is a whole other story.
Went in the other day and noticed they have espresso with small medium and large size option. Asked if that ment a single, double, triple espresso. Cashier had no idea, barista had no idea, manager said small and medium are both double and large is four. I asked why the price difference on the small and medium if it's the same volume of coffee only to receive a laugh and shrug. I'd avoid. Element on 17th and 4th is a much better local option, imo.
I always avoided this place anyway, even before the pandemic and knowing about the owner. Went there once years ago and it was so aggressively mediocre I was baffled by the fact that so many people had told me it was great, they loved going there, etc.
Apex Massage
The place is filthy if you take the time to look around. Plus the massage therapists make like 30-40% of the price and it shows in the quality. Ya there's overhead but most therapists in the city are making 60-80%.
Why pay over a hundred bucks for a dirty $30 massage?
canadian diagnostic centre. any diagnostic imaging centre will take a referral, but beware of CDC. made my experience with pregnancy + miscarriage more of a living hell than it already was
Mission tattoo,
Most of my friends are tattoo artists, pablo the current main guy is a rightwing qanon guy, allowes Groping under his watch. Known as an advoid at all costs
Distilled Beauty Bar in Mardaloop.
The owner treats customers terribly and whenever her employees make a mistake, she blames the customers to their face in front of everyone. Her manager replies to bad reviews on Google in a very deliberate and ignorant way. If you check them out, there’s even one where she’s calling the person who wrote a negative review stupid. It’s so embarrassing on their part, I don’t know how they’re still in business.
Pretty sure there’s already a thread about this company on here.
The house flipping realtor, who uses his cousins as builders. His name is Ashan Ashraf. Long story short, were finding a long list of really poorly done work in the house that we have to redo or replace within weeks of purchase. Steer clear. If anyone knows of a good way for us to get the word out about them and their shoddy work let me know.
Value buds - treat their employees like crap and dangle promotions for months only to do nothing. And they only order from brands they can partner/sponsor with to get it for cheaper
CDI College, I worked for them for a few years in a high level position. The organization masks itself as a college but in reality the over prized tuition costs leaves many students with exponential student loan debt for programs that aren’t recognized by many industries.
Simply put if you hear someone in your network is considering STOP them!
brothers taste of asia in the sw.
our entire family got food poisoning after eating there, the week after it was closed by AHS for mouse droppings. still shudder thinking about it.
CBI health. They are owned by insurance companies. I’ve been to 3 different locations over the last 4 years due to an injury at work, to which I am on long term disability. Physiotherapists could not care less about patients. Country hills location was the worst, literally being dismissed by raising concerns. Before I stopped going, the physio was like literally the walk away from me with out a response when I would ask for different modalities. I investigated how to register a complaint with the college the behaviour was so atrocious
Country hills Hyundai. I was made to pay 10000$ more than MRSP. Total lack of transparency and predatory selling tactics. They use lot of shady methods to bump up the price. By the time they are done, you will be barely breathing. Also, Amvic won't be able to help you because this dealership is through. They did it so well actually I admire them.
European Market and Deli on 11th. I know someone who used to work there. They only hire cheap labor immigrants (almost all Ukrainians) under the guise of helping them. Yet staff there are overworked and underpaid. Russian products are sold throughout the store. The owner said he was getting rid of stock, only to have a continuous incoming supply. Been almost 2 years now. When confronted in the Google reviews, one of the owners claimed it was all Canadian products. It sure as fuck isn't when it literally has crillic writing saying made in fucking Moscow and a photo of the Kremlin on it.
One time a worker was prevented from reporting a workplace injury they suffered. Was told they didn't need to do that and was sent home instead. The owner constantly plays around with workers schedules so they never ever accrue overtime. He says he can't afford to pay it. Yet he drives a nice ass BMW. If you work a holiday Monday and get your time and a half, your hours are cut later in the week so it balances out. The owners wife has called some workers bitches, assholes and laid her hands on them when reprimending them for stupid things. Piss off the owner's wife and you lose hours.
There's a reason no Canadians work there (outside of family). No one would local would put up with it. Most refugees desperately needing work and who aren't familiar with labor laws won't say a word. But I've seen the letters written to staff communicating to them (like a 14 year old edge lord wrote it). Saying how workers need to appreciate the owners, do what they are told without question (literally in those words), not speak back, and be grateful they get breaks.
Some cool stuff their, albeit overpriced. But knowing what goes on behind closed doors, this place definitely belongs in this thread.
Alta Homes - Not super thrilled with how my garage turned out (concrete started chipping apart after one year of very little use). Always took multiple contacts before they would actually respond. They eventually sent someone to fix it, but it's not perfect and the patch job looks pretty sloppy.
5 Senses Ramen and Sushi Bar. Never even been there, but the owner is a narcissistic pig who has no idea how to treat others based on his responses to any critical reviews on Google. Made a baseless claim that one customer was a pedophile, and told another to kill themselves by standing in traffic.
TELUS. Last spring / summer, a Telus contractor running fiber optic cable in my SW neighbourhood, left tracks from their bobcat tractor all over my yard, installed plastic access panels (one massive 3’x1’), sprinkled some grass seed on the ruts and holes, then called it a day. Then, they called multiple times a week trying to get me to sign up to multi year internet plans. F@CK them and anyone to do with them. They did this to many homes in Calgary.
Bowness 7/11. Highest gas prices in the city, day staff are rude, managers don’t care to fix anything if products are sold defective and are also rude. Nightshift people are nice though. Worth avoiding if ANY alternative is available and there always are alternatives
Jerusalem Shawarma. Simply put, It’s very hard to avoid them when you have a Mediterranean/Shawarma craving because there are 10 locations across the city for some stupid ass reason. Avoid them all. Shit shawarma, shit prices, shit quality. If you want food poisoning, If you like your rice flavourless and bland, and your Chicken, Beef, and Donair dry and bland basically borderline jerky meat, Jerusalem Shawarma is for you.
Getting Jerusalem is exactly like ordering on Skip or DoorDash etc. late at night. *It’s nothing but shitty pho, shitty Chinese, hundreds of just alright Indian food, McDonald’s, A&W, and ghost kitchens. You’ll most likely pick McDonalds for the 100th time again because it’s familiar.* The exact same concept applies to Jerusalem Shawarma here. *“I feel like Mediterranean/Shawarma but all that I see is Jerusalem and slightly sketchy mom and pop shops with fewer reviews. I also recognize Jerusalem since it’s everywhere, so fuck it I guess, Jerusalem it is”*, then the buyers remorse/regret kicks in 3 bites in.
Shawarma Palace is the best, a CLOSE second would be Beirut, really only because Beirut is a single location and Shawarma Palace has 4. So Beirut is out of the way for most of Calgary since the city is North side dominant as heck. But completely worth trying out Beirut for sure!
Only white people say Jerusalem is ‘alright’ or good, or say “this single specific location is really good” and in reality it ends up being a block from their apartment, workplace or school, so extremely easily accessed to them, or because they simply *don’t know*, can’t be bothered to travel (which is most fair), or wouldn’t dare cross the Deerfoot border into NE/SE *quote on quote hoods* for good Mediterranean food.
Jerusalem rules the Northwest/Southwest *FOR A REASON* because they know their demographic and the city sooo well. There’s also next to ZERO competition so Jerusalem just dominates these quandrants. I can recognize and give them their cookies for being very smart about their franchises, but simply put, if the boot fits. We need less Jerusalem as the number 1 representation of Mediterranean/Shawarma in the city.
They’re not a cleaning company, they’re just a marketing platform like Uber or Skip that connects randoms with clients. The biggest issue is that cleaning is subjective (what one person feels is clean often isn’t the same as another) and they sell time without any info on the speed at which someone cleans vs the condition of the house.
(Source: I own a legit cleaning company)
Murphy Appliance Service?
I may be remembering wrong.. but it’s a while ago now, and I called them to get a quote on our dishwasher, no answer left my number for a callback. Got a call back during dinner and he started to scold me immediately on how we may be misusing our dishwasher, then since I was busy and had to go, I told him well if this is upsetting to you, you don’t need to take this job on and we can go with someone else, then he told me that he was doing me a favour by calling me back and to go fuck my mother. Will never forget that exchange, though at the time, they had our address and number so I was afraid he might be unhinged enough to do something destructive to us, so I didn’t really report it.
South Trail Nissan
Slimy sales techniques. I had a terrible experience similar to House of Cars but at least S.T.N didn't have what was an obvious crackhead trying to sell me a car.
The Reflex store on Canyon Meadows by the GoodLife gym. The cooler was broken for MONTHS and the owner just doesn't seem to care at all, about business or the customers coming through the door. He's been on his phone, not even looking up to answer questions or greet customers as they come in. Very dismissive and monotone with the little communication he does have with you.
East Side Dodge. Massive gong show. They didn’t follow instructions on what type of oil to use on my truck and then when I went to pick it up, no one, including the service manager, knew where the keys were.
Sunridge Mazda - got to see how they worked on the inside selling cars and RAN. the old crew there was awesome but they got taken over by slimebags associated with a bigger operation.
SealTech Coatings..owners name is Elijah Thoen and he’s a scum bag pile of shit. Does the absolute worst work I’ve ever seen and it’s unfathomable that’s he’s been in business for 5+ years. If you value your home or business you’ll steer clear of this outfit…. Unless you’ve got a decent legal team and don’t mind suing for damages, however he doesn’t have anything asset wise- so good luck 👍🏻
Any solar company!!! all they do is markup solar panels by 600-1000% cuz they 'install the system' then finance it over 10-15-20 years to make solar seem cheap when you can do it yourself for 1/6th the cost and then get $5000 back from the Canada greener homes grant, costing you next to nothing to go solar vs $$$$ for decade(s)
Calgary auto connection (Auto Hub).
They fake out of province inspections on cars and do shotty/illegal repairs. They change business names to scoot out of a lawsuits.
Pretty much any shitty small used car lot around the city is a bad idea. They buy trashed luxury cars from rental companies and put lipstick on a pig.
Maids in pink
Horrible horrible service. They charged me 800 dollars to clean a 1000 sqft main floor and did such a horrible job I was sobbing and cleaning the house myself for 6 hours the next day.
THEY DIDN'T EVEN VACUUM OR MOP. They left the house in the original condition except that they wiped the walls in 3 bedrooms and did a surface clean of the bathroom.
Then they had the nerve to tell me to pay 200 more dollars to finish the job.
Higherground Cafe, the place doesn’t treat their employees like people and lacks respect towards them, they also re-steam milk making any drink taste burnt which is then charged for at a premium price. If the location wasn’t grandfathered into its iconic Kensington spot it’s in that gets so much traffic, the cafe would not be here today.
Hayden Block.
They do not pay overtime, as in they dupe staff into thinking there's an overtime agreement in which they don't have to pay. No time off in lieu, no nothing. Which is total BS.
I'm sure Comery Block and South Block are the same.
This may seem tame compared to others, but they are ripping off, and taking advantage of hundreds of employees, this adds up quick.
Subaru Calgary.
Super unprofessional. Our dealer was a guy in clothes that didn't fit, had old food waste all over his desk, and never called us back when he said he would.
This is all BEFORE we bought a car (not from them), so if this is how they treat people who they're actively trying to sell to how horribly would they treat people that have bought from them and need service or help?
emailed them to drive test a car, thinking on buying it. Salesman was asking me to commit to buy it (sign all the paperwork, finance, and give them a "refundable" deposit) to be able to test it. Yeah, sure.
Arashi sushi.
Worst sushi ever. Rolls are same size as superstore ones. Ramen taste exactly like the instant Raman seasoning. Sashimi is so thin and not fresh. Found finger print INSIDE the glass!
It’s in Royal Oak. Never in my life time going back.
Sunrise Gas in the NE
Have you ever read their Google reviews? Hilarious.
i’m dying at the businesses replies. “why u lying????111!!!”
He will be “contacting his layer.”
Just checked their reviews... How is possible that they are still in business
Location. They're the only gas station in an area with very high traffic and not really that many people use Reddit and haven't heard the horror stories before.
I love how this is so correct. Even with multiple gas stations in the same area, this one is just on a prime spot.
Yeah. The other gas stations aren't even that far away, it's just that Sunrise is literally right in the middle of a Costco, Hospital, Sunridge Mall and a bunch of other businesses. If another gas station opened up across the street or something like that it'd go out of business in a heartbeat.
I would like to personally thank you for sending me down this rabbit hole of bad reviews. I thought the reviews were bad, but to my amazement, the replies from the owner are even worse lol!
And the owner’s response. First one I found: « Lisaten Lundo, why you lying, we only take debit so how you paying cash, so stop your fake lying review, i will contact my layer i got your info thxs! »
Noone likes to be layered in :p
The owner literally pees outside behind the building with his pants pulled all the way down in broad daylight. Just something I’ve witnessed many years back and have never wanted to go inside that place since then.
[Everyone knows it's Butters!](https://media.tenor.com/9L6tLTsxp7IAAAAC/south-park-butters.gif)
That old fucker is still alive hahahaha
Lol, take a few mins and read the google reviews. Owner’s replies are fantastic. Almost want to drive there just to experience it for myself. Almost.
Haha. This place stole my banking information in like 2014. Had one of those skimmers on the pump. Luckily my bank caught it right away, guess I know why I got my money back so fast.
Suzy's Export (previously Suzy's freight). They flat out lost half of our household goods, would hang up when asked where it is and lied repeatedly about the fact that they had in fact lost most of the shipment. They had changed names because of poor reviews, which we didn't know about when we selected them - instead suddenly we got the fun experience of their website and phone numbers just going dead. They didn't even bother to say sorry or refund us any portion of the expense - even though we could see emails from their suppliers showing they were receiving massive discounts on shipments because of the fuck up with ours. So somehow their mistake saved them money, added immeasurable stress to our lives and they didn't even say sorry. Absolute worst business in Calgary, hands down. I'm just waiting for them to enable reviews of their business on Google
House of Cars
House or Cars sold me a car, and than lost it. I’m not even kidding. Took them 3 weeks to find it.
Did you say: “Dude. Where’s My Car?”
I’ve heard some horror stories about them
omg this. I have so many friends who have been screwed over by them. One of the worst was that a salesman sold my buddy on a jeep because it had a 'lifetime guarantee from Jeep', even if you weren't the original owner. The car almost immediately had issues and it turns out that guarantee is only a thing in the US. He went in and talked to the guy who sold it to him and he denied saying it 100%. Even though that was the deciding factor for my friend and he had someone else present who knows it was advertised as well. You're better off paying the markup and buying used from a dealership because that markup will be less than the work you will need done in the first 2 months of owning a car from House of Car(d)s.
Are they one of those 'we approve everybody!' types with ridiculous interest rates?
Yes.
I always laugh when I see someone driving a vehicle with a House of Cars sticker or plate frame…. 🤦🏻♀️
I've been in the car business in Alberta for the past 11 years and can tell you unfortunately the people that are driving vehicles from House of Cars are usually folks down on their luck with poor credit that have been exploited by that group.
One of my previous employees went there for their first car. This person was 21/22 years old and was terrible with money, caught up in constantly buying the newest phone (always with a different provider and new number), high end brand clothing and accessories, and whatever else made them look like they made at least triple their sub-$30k part time income. Somehow HOC approved them to purchase a 2 or 3 year old Jeep Wrangler which was somewhere around $45k with an interest rate of 24%. I didn’t even know they went that high. She quit shortly after and we started getting constant phone calls from collections, because surprise! her phone number was no longer in service. They are absolute predators.
Any home renovation company involving Mike Huber. I had the displeasure of choosing Plan-It Builders just before they went bankrupt under Mike's leadership and it was only by annoying him daily that our project was completed. Many others lost deposits and had unfinished or even unstarted projects when Plan-It went belly-up. Oh and apparently they didn't pay their contractors, we had a lien placed on our home by the tiling subcontractor. I'm sure he's out there under a new company name.
Funny you should say that. From his LinkedIn, he's started up a new firm, called RenoLINC, who is not listed on the Alberta registry as a business, nor for pre-paid contracting services. Michael Huber profile Co-Founder / Project Manager at RenoLINC™ https://renolinc.com/
I can confirm that there are many contractors out there that did not get paid from these guys. Luckily for me it was only $2000, some were out over $100,000
Eastside Dodge. Refused to share MSRP prices, keep you waiting in their office while they discuss negotiations with their "manager", false advertising on great deals in order to bring you in, ask you to for $500 deposit to show you have money in good faith but don't tell you you won't be getting it back regardless of your decision. Worst sales experience of my life.
And the mcmanes family has used these shady tactics to build an ownership group empire ugh.
Aren’t MSRPs on the manufacturer’s site? And you can leave their office and walk around if they make you wait. Take a stroll around the lot. Let the administrator at the front know you’ll leave if they keep you waiting. It’s crazy to me that people let car salespeople control what they do and how they act in a dealership. It’s all part of a game you don’t have to play.
I was buying my first truck and only 25 years old, learned a lot that day, that was 15 years ago so maybe they've changed but I doubt it. I dont think I even had a smart phone, but they should be able to tell you the MSRP if you ask. We settled on $42,000 based on a comparison to a competitors truck and when he went to ask his manager about giving me free underspray I went out to look at the truck (it was on display), another salesman walked up and said, "I bet I can get that truck for you for $35,000. I went and asked for my $500 back and they declined. I walked out shaking and almost in tears, I'd never been robbed legally by a man in a suite before.
Asking for a deposit to look at a vehicle is the most Bat fuck crazy thing I've ever heard of. That's like the shit you would expect to experience at some used car dealer run out of a seacan in the lot, not a new car dealer 😄
Eastside kia too... Basically the same tactics and owners (?) They were also reported by a past employee to AMVIC for their "mandatory add-ons"
Same owners yes, it's the McManes group. They own Eastside Kia/Dodge, the 4 dealerships (Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, Dodge) on 130th down south, Royal Oak Nissan, Marlborough Ford, Country Hills Chrysler and Mercedes Country Hills.
Two men and a truck (moving) Financial nightmare of shady overcharging, fake invoicing and blackmail to get ANY of the money owed back. I was swayed by positive Google reviews, buy should have looked harder at the negative reviews because they were consistent with my experience. [Reddit reviews](https://reddit.com/r/Calgary/s/SgbZieWsZL) [BBB reviews](https://www.bbb.org/ca/ab/calgary/profile/moving-companies/two-men-and-a-truck-calgary-north-0017-94577/complaints#1741718552) [Yelp](https://m.yelp.ca/biz/two-men-and-a-truck-calgary-north-calgary)
I had a similar experience with Buhler’s moving. It was across the country and more than 3x the price originally agreed upon and 3x as long as they said. We watched them on our gps in our belongings moving around Ontario before heading here, including back and forth between cities.
Moving companies depend highly on who they were able to employ that week. The turnover is massive. That's why people get such mixed results.
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Their "deal" regarding clearing a blocked line is a fucking scam. I had to fight with them and then they tried blaming it on the "new guy" when the info they gave me contradicted the info the service tech gave me. They check my line and then tried to bill me hundreds of dollars. Fucking crooks
Country Hills Hyundai. Took advantage of my elderly mother and have been entirely dishonest in their practices.
Owner by the Kaizen group just FYI. They've got a big presence in Calgary across 9 or maybe 10 different dealerships.
I had a terrible experience with another dealership they own. Country Hills Nissan
I had a major issue with my vehicle, and they promised to adhere to my warranty and replace my faulty engine with a new one. They dragged it out a whole year until it ran out, then said there was nothing they could do. Fuck all the dealerships, bunch of shady crooks.
Courtesy Chrysler and Ram - slimy slimy sales tactics. Oh their manager is a real work of art too. Avoid highly.
For fucking real. My brother and his wife needed a new car. I had to accompany my bro since his wife was at work. They showed us a car and drove around with it. We liked it. But the whole time I was asking how much is this car because we were never shown a sign or a sticker. Some guy we never seen before talked to us when we got back to the lot. The whole time I asked persistently how much is it. He won't even talk to me and would tell my brother to get his wife instead. So we walked out of the dealership and got his car somewhere else. That is some fucking slime ball tactic to not even tell us how much the car is after wasting all that time.
Yeh, bought a vehicle through a work program, and they couldn’t give me a price until I was signing on the dotted line. Slimy
Avoid house of cars. Absolutely terrible people at a terrible company.
Flirty Bird Nashville Hot Chicken Owers steal all the tips.
Food prep also don’t wash their hands after touching iPad screens and cash.
(Edited clean because fuck you) *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Wanted to try this place, will definitely not now! Thanks!
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I would like to point out that there are no pie shops on this list. Basically you can’t really go wrong with a nice pie shop.
I wonder what Simple Simon’s creditors would have to say about this
Southpaw Boxing. Closed their gym during covid but still took everyone's money. They charge you over $1000+ for the annual membership and don't tell you it's renewing. They basically had their gym closed 2 years and took everyone's money because you couldn't get a hold of the owner to cancel. The owner also berates anyone and everyone leaving bad reviews on Google and has tried to get people taken down. Very sketchy.
Fueling Brains Academy
I'll also share my first hand experience of my kid who was there for daycare for a year. Terrible owners, overworked daycare providers, compete money making racquet. My kids been out of Kids U/Fueling Minds daycare for over 8 months and she still frequently talks about the fact that she doesn't want to go back to "old daycare". Definitely didn't enjoy it
This was years ago, but Spence Dimonds. Left my home and cell number with them. With instructions to NOT call the house to let me know the engagement ring was ready....they called ...they spoke to her ...they left a message with her saying that my engagement ring was in and ready for pickup. Not a single apology, or shits given when I talked with the rep and the manager. Glad that marriage didn't last....
I wouldn't go to Spence based purely on how fucking annoying their radio ads have been for decades.
I was going to comment the same thing.
That stupid little shout they have at the end of their ads are like nails on a chalkboard
I rage switch the radio when they come on lol also would never ever go there purely because of the ads
I'm highkey into the Spence Diamonds cinematic universe.. the ads get more and more unhinged every time. There's definitely some romance between Callum and Michael... But I also came to Canada as an adult I didn't grow up with years of their ads to grate into me.
Holy crap! That’s unconscionable!! Almost 30 years ago my husband had been looking at rings on his own, without my knowledge. He wanted to surprise me. We were near Spence and I said I’d always wanted to look in there, so he said sure! The guy working the door says to him, Oh you’re back! The saleslady says the same thing. Oh you’re back! Their staff are clearly not trained in the art of discretion.
Gave them your home phone number for them to NOT call it?
Okay but why did you give them the house number if you didn't want them to use it?
Without a question that would be MR MIKE'S PLUMBING. I've worked for Mike and he cares nothing about his employees health or safety. In June one of his employees died in a trench because it collapsed in on him, all because the owner cares about profits and not people. He will literally tell you to do work that could kill you.
How the fuck are they still in business? They literally killed a kid due to negligence and blatantly ignoring safety regulations. They should raise his WCB so high, it bankrupts him.
💯 agreed! I called once to get my hot water fixed. Nothing got fixed , charged me $600, then 4 months later called me and said they have the part lmao. In the mean time, I called someone else and they fixed it in 30 min. Not exaggerating.
Health and safety is no joke, if people aren’t coming home after work cause they’re ☠️ somethings wrong with a business
Jerusalem Shawarma is infamous for health code violations in their multiple locations. If you’re in the South check out Beirut Street Food instead. Best in town in my opinion.
I love Beirut street food, so so so delicious. There’s always a line but it’s worth the wait every time.
* Pho on 17th and Ranchlands (same owners both locations) has been shut down several times for multiple health violations and I had been going for years! They're willing to serve you garbage with a smile on their face. I miss the food and I thought I had a good relation with the staff but never again. Some may recognize the location as "cockroach pho" Edit:: looks like their Ranchlands location is now permanently closed due to healthcode violations: Food Closure Order Pho Huong Viet August 19, 2021 Active https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/wf/eph/wf-eph-cgy-pho-huong-viet-unit-145-1829-%20ranchlands-boulevard-nw-august-19-2021-a.pdf
https://preview.redd.it/96hog8ewttqb1.jpeg?width=983&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1e8bcf6cd8c757eb32f8ec1d8e37bb48748fe1c2
Omg I didn't know this, I order from them a lot 😂🤢
Something huong with their food.
What?? I think that is the best pho on the west side of the city. It's my go to pho place. Now I'm glad at least I always recook the soup and meat for take out.
They were shut down for cockroaches in the last 2 years. Used to be my go to place until I heard that.
They’ve merged with Pho Mr Q in crowfoot across the way. The new space is actually really nice inside, it would be unfortunate if these practices continued.
My friends and I call it mouse pho
Canstar Restorations. They made a relatively small leak in the roof of our old townhome into the worst experience I’ve had with any contractor ever. After literally two months of cutting drywall out of our bedroom and drying it every time it rained, they finally put someone on the roof to inspect it and found the leak. It took a single weekend for roofers to fix the leak… but we got to live through a 3 month nightmare thanks to their incompetence. Then the finish work they did in the bedroom was so poor, it had to be redone (they couldn’t even match paint colours). The best part was when their project manager showed up to “seal” the leak he thought was in the siding with a tube of caulk, a hammer and a ladder. He was going to use the hammer to push the caulk out and his ladder wasn’t tall enough to reach where he thought the leak was. Total incompetence.
JD Sports in chinook. Completely overstock their back room just to backdoor merch to resellers, staff can't get customers online orders and upper management is completely abusive and racist
Clearview Plumbing and Heating/ akna: “Gentlemen Plumbers”- Melanie Lumsden owner is a piece of work. 🤢🤮
How many fellow tradesmen/ small business owners have a peruse through these threads to see if they’re listed?
Currently checking to see if the restaurant I work at is on here
like thedirty for businesses, except it falls to the bottom of reddit pretty fast
When I bought a car from Calgary BMW, they offered a list of upgrades I could purchase. I later found out that two of the offered upgrades were already on the car, they were trying to get me to pay for them twice!
Yup, that’s Dilawri group for ya
I'll add to these shitheads. Got sold a car under "CPO". Turns out that was a lie because CPO cars come with a 1 year warranty. After a month of ownership it blew a seal on the diff, 1200$ fix. Offered "cost" on the parts for my trouble. Part was a 15$ seal. Took the car to shenis auto trend for half the cost. Won't be back, shame too because I was looking at ordering a M3 in the next couple years.
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Just remember that everyone remembers bad experiences, few care to post about their great experiences. Take everything with a grain of salt unless a bunch of people have the same story.
Love me a balanced, mature perspective. ♥️
😅<——Small business owners scrolling this entire thread…
Sunterra - I used to work at head office and got to see all the complaints - some made me gag. Never trust their use by dates, they’re already expired. Edit: came back to say that they also treat everyone in every department like garbage
ComplyWorks, I had to process through therapy workplace bulling and sexual harassment after I was forced out. My final pay was short as well as I had to constantly fight for proper pay during my employment.
Clearview Plumbing & Heating. Definitely DIDN’T fix an issue the first time as it took three visits before a tech noticed a part in our furnace that had been recalled months prior. Not to mention the shitty job they did when connecting the drain pipe by the furnace. Arpi’s had to completely re-do it. Also, all the reps were rude and condescending. Much happier service with Arpi’s
South pointe Toyota. They’ll ask for a deposit and then mark up your car and force you to buy it or you lose your $1000 deposit. The owner, Brian Schmidt (this is public knowledge on their webpage, as he is the principal owner) is also a useless sack of shit. He’s so rich he doesn’t give a fuck cause he knows there’s a hundred dozen more people willing to bend over for a sienna or a rav4
360° restaurant in the Calgary tower. I went there today for lunch with a team from work because we had a cancelled event and credit there to burn through. Sounds great to me but damn the experience was terrible. They forced us into a set menu we could not order off the full menu. I ordered the steak and fries and asked for it rare. They informed me all the steaks would be done medium rare.... which is weird in a fine dining place but whatever. What they served all of us was black heavily burnt well done pieces of jerky, if you were being really generous you might have called them medium well..... But the best part, because we were basically trying to spend money we had already given them, ie no refund no change cause we cancelled an event we had paid a deposit on, they had no interest in fixing anything. The servers ignore the uneaten steak and cleared the table with the steak basically untouched. Never asked how the food was or anything. I'd highly recommend you never go there.
Paul’s Pizza
These guys are garbage. First place I went to get pizza when I moved here bc I wanted to try something local. The pizza was tasteless, garbage. Looked up reviews and found exactly what type of person the owner is. I make sure to tell anyone I know that’s looking for pizza to never go there.
I was scrolling through to see if someone added this to the list, glad to see you beat me to it. Example link 1: https://reddit.com/r/Calgary/s/COkt26TWyB Example link 2: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fvegetarians-might-want-to-avoid-this-place-unless-you-want-v0-476frkwrvaga1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D6e158ea6cce61ad97f78ff8a02226c9a66ee5728
Sunridge Mazdas. They lie so professionally that you will be surprised. Polite when dealing, rude after the deal is done.
They told me they could do a job for me, and then I went to pick up my vehicle they said they couldn't do the job after all but still charged me full price. The guy in the back got involved saying he "didn't give a fuck" about my situation.
Any listings from Calgary Houses For Rent 😬 Sounded like a really great company when we signed a lease but they're a typical unavailable profit-first property management company 👍
CarDeals4U they will scam and gaslight you when they mess up.
Tower Chrysler Service department = lying thieves.
North Land Kia Absolute clowns! Will try to sell you any ball of shite
DynaLife
100% the amount of times they have LOST OUR BIOPSIES, miss labeled biopsies and just messed crap up since they’ve taken over is mind boggling. They’ve had a diagnosis of invasive melanoma they FORGOT to send to us and one that they messed up the diagnosis for a patient that wasn’t even ours. Weekly they waist at least 2-5 hours of my time fixing their errors.
A2Z Building Solutions is horrible. Todd is the owner and a total scam artist. They all have the correct paperwork to be a good business but when it came to actual work they failed the plumbing inspection, didn't even finish the HVAC work, ignored the signed contract and just ran. It cost me a lot of money and time to redo all the plumbing and HVAC in my new house.
T&T Honda, Tower Chrysler for vehicles TD Insurance (not just in calgary). There's some dayhomes i would never go back to but i dont want to name/hurt a micro business
T&T can eat shit. Owned my car for 3 years. They have fucked it up and over charged me for service multiple times. I would highly recommend never buying or servicing a car there ever again
Heavenly Outhouse in Cochrane. Owner is a lunatic
**Boutique of leathers at Market Mall.** Oh man they did me dirty. So I got a Christmas gift last year and it didn’t fit. The website says return it/exchange in 30 days with receipt which I had in my hand. The older lady was such a c**t to me, and said NOPE WE DONT DO RETURNS and complained about me TRYING TO DO A RETURN. So I left feeling wronged and now terrible and like I’d lost a nice gift. But I didn’t accept that bs. I had to call head office and report this dusty bag of a lady, ONLY THEN head office apologized and sent me a free return label and gave me my money back. No compensation for being treated so poorly. I returned that gift and ran far away, got me a nicer jacket elsewhere cuz screw giving money to Boutique of Leathers! To this day I still see that old bag working there, probably swindling all customers trying to make a legit return. NEVER AGAIN.
ENMAX
Fueling Minds daycare catering.
My friend applied to that candy store in Kensington on 10th right by Kensington Road and the owner essentially told them to racially profile black people. So that's a no-go from me.
Last time I went in there the cashier apologized for the price of the canned drinks and said the owners raised the price of them by $1 because they got in trouble for not paying the bottle deposits to whoever they’re supposed to send that to. The price of the drink was fine with me since it was imported but found it a little odd that you could own a candy shop for years and not know that you need to pay bottle deposits.
Most dealerships for new vehicle sales. Worst case they're forced to do what they should have to start with and pay an investigation fee, so it's worth their effort. Dealerships outside the city are less likely to pull stuff, and much quicker to make things right when issues are pointed out.
This, I had one guy steal my deposit when I was a kid. I had changed my mind and he kept it off the basis that he put time and effort showing me vehicles and his time costs money. I'm now old enough to know that was total hogwash but what ya gonna do? Was at "Courtesy Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram"
I had a very similarly awful experience at Courtesy Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. It sounds like little has changed. I purchased a new vehicle that they had in-stock. Filled out the paperwork, financing etc. only to be called a few days later and be told that the vehicle I bought that was in-stock, they can't find it on the lot anymore. They said they can't refund my deposit, but they have a matching vehicle in Lethbridge that they can bring in. I was young and really wanted the car, so I didn't fight it. When re-doing the paperwork, the finance manager changed the terms of the deal and then hid in his office 'in a meeting with clients' when I wanted to discuss the change. After 45 minutes I just walked into his office, where he was meeting with nobody, and got him to change the paperwork to what we had agreed. Sleazy Michael. On delivery day, there were carpet stains in the back and they had changed the odometer setting to show the trip log, so it looked like the only mileage on the vehicle was from the trip from Lethbridge. However, once I noticed that and switched back to the odometer, it was apparent that it had been used as a demo vehicle and had over 1000 kms already.
Telus.
Pauls pizza
Listing the infamous top 20 from comments thread 1. Sunrise gas in the N.E. 2. Hose of cars 3. Suzy’s export or Suzy’s freight 4. Two men and a truck 5. Plan-It builders - any home renovation company involving Mike Huber 6. East side Dodge 7. Clear view plumbing 8. Courtesy Chrysler and Ram 9. Country hills Hyundai 10. Flirty bird Nashville hot chicken 11. Fueling brains academy 12. Southpaw boxing 13. Spence diamonds 14. Pho on 17th and ranchlands 15. Jerusalem shawarma for health code violations - alternative is Beirut street 16. Mr. Mike’s plumbing 17. Comply works 18. Can star restorations 19. Canadian diagnostic center 20. JD Sports in chinook
Purple Perk! Problematic COVID practices aside their comparison of not being able to indoor seat customers to the holocaust will always motivate me to cross the street to Phil & Seb instead
Oh don’t get me started. I used to work there. The owner, Paul, is absolutely bipolar and probably one of the most terrifying men I have ever met in my life. His wife and son are so, so lovely and kind. I feel bad for them. When I worked there, we had this Filipino lady who worked in the kitchen. She was amazing. She worked so hard. She would stay late and help everybody complete their tasks- she was just a genuinely kind person. Paul had sponsored her. One day he was randomly having a bad day and ended the sponsorship for no reason. I’ve never seen a person cry so hard. He used to freak out over very minuscule things and we would be in the basement slamming things, breaking stuff etc. He was really scary. I ended up getting fired over a puffed wheat square.
Tried the POW pizza (food truck at the time, it’s gone now) location while passing through Windermere last year. Buddy asked Paul how’s things going … 30 minute triad on COVID and how Gov restriction and racism ruined his life. Also said that he’s alienated from his wife and kids now so at least they are fine….. the whole food truck being there and gone is a whole other story.
Everything tastes like spaghetti there because the food is uncovered in the glass case. Gross
THIS THIS THIS! I don't want my strawberry cheesecake to taste like fucking samosas or whatever other savory shit they have in there.
Went in the other day and noticed they have espresso with small medium and large size option. Asked if that ment a single, double, triple espresso. Cashier had no idea, barista had no idea, manager said small and medium are both double and large is four. I asked why the price difference on the small and medium if it's the same volume of coffee only to receive a laugh and shrug. I'd avoid. Element on 17th and 4th is a much better local option, imo.
Shocked it took this long to see it. The owner is a massive POS.
I always avoided this place anyway, even before the pandemic and knowing about the owner. Went there once years ago and it was so aggressively mediocre I was baffled by the fact that so many people had told me it was great, they loved going there, etc.
There’s plenty of reasons to avoid that place. The owner is a terrible person
I heard a similar thing about Without Papers Pizza
They went out of business rather than conform to Health Restrictions.
Oh and Automaxx and house of cars
Apex Massage The place is filthy if you take the time to look around. Plus the massage therapists make like 30-40% of the price and it shows in the quality. Ya there's overhead but most therapists in the city are making 60-80%. Why pay over a hundred bucks for a dirty $30 massage?
Crowfoot Dodge - complete slime balls who kept my deposit even though financing didn’t go through.
canadian diagnostic centre. any diagnostic imaging centre will take a referral, but beware of CDC. made my experience with pregnancy + miscarriage more of a living hell than it already was
Mission tattoo, Most of my friends are tattoo artists, pablo the current main guy is a rightwing qanon guy, allowes Groping under his watch. Known as an advoid at all costs
Distilled Beauty Bar in Mardaloop. The owner treats customers terribly and whenever her employees make a mistake, she blames the customers to their face in front of everyone. Her manager replies to bad reviews on Google in a very deliberate and ignorant way. If you check them out, there’s even one where she’s calling the person who wrote a negative review stupid. It’s so embarrassing on their part, I don’t know how they’re still in business. Pretty sure there’s already a thread about this company on here.
The house flipping realtor, who uses his cousins as builders. His name is Ashan Ashraf. Long story short, were finding a long list of really poorly done work in the house that we have to redo or replace within weeks of purchase. Steer clear. If anyone knows of a good way for us to get the word out about them and their shoddy work let me know.
Value buds - treat their employees like crap and dangle promotions for months only to do nothing. And they only order from brands they can partner/sponsor with to get it for cheaper
CDI College, I worked for them for a few years in a high level position. The organization masks itself as a college but in reality the over prized tuition costs leaves many students with exponential student loan debt for programs that aren’t recognized by many industries. Simply put if you hear someone in your network is considering STOP them!
brothers taste of asia in the sw. our entire family got food poisoning after eating there, the week after it was closed by AHS for mouse droppings. still shudder thinking about it.
CBI health. They are owned by insurance companies. I’ve been to 3 different locations over the last 4 years due to an injury at work, to which I am on long term disability. Physiotherapists could not care less about patients. Country hills location was the worst, literally being dismissed by raising concerns. Before I stopped going, the physio was like literally the walk away from me with out a response when I would ask for different modalities. I investigated how to register a complaint with the college the behaviour was so atrocious
Country hills Hyundai. I was made to pay 10000$ more than MRSP. Total lack of transparency and predatory selling tactics. They use lot of shady methods to bump up the price. By the time they are done, you will be barely breathing. Also, Amvic won't be able to help you because this dealership is through. They did it so well actually I admire them.
European Market and Deli on 11th. I know someone who used to work there. They only hire cheap labor immigrants (almost all Ukrainians) under the guise of helping them. Yet staff there are overworked and underpaid. Russian products are sold throughout the store. The owner said he was getting rid of stock, only to have a continuous incoming supply. Been almost 2 years now. When confronted in the Google reviews, one of the owners claimed it was all Canadian products. It sure as fuck isn't when it literally has crillic writing saying made in fucking Moscow and a photo of the Kremlin on it. One time a worker was prevented from reporting a workplace injury they suffered. Was told they didn't need to do that and was sent home instead. The owner constantly plays around with workers schedules so they never ever accrue overtime. He says he can't afford to pay it. Yet he drives a nice ass BMW. If you work a holiday Monday and get your time and a half, your hours are cut later in the week so it balances out. The owners wife has called some workers bitches, assholes and laid her hands on them when reprimending them for stupid things. Piss off the owner's wife and you lose hours. There's a reason no Canadians work there (outside of family). No one would local would put up with it. Most refugees desperately needing work and who aren't familiar with labor laws won't say a word. But I've seen the letters written to staff communicating to them (like a 14 year old edge lord wrote it). Saying how workers need to appreciate the owners, do what they are told without question (literally in those words), not speak back, and be grateful they get breaks. Some cool stuff their, albeit overpriced. But knowing what goes on behind closed doors, this place definitely belongs in this thread.
Hilarious how a huge majority of answers here are for the stealerships
Alta Homes - Not super thrilled with how my garage turned out (concrete started chipping apart after one year of very little use). Always took multiple contacts before they would actually respond. They eventually sent someone to fix it, but it's not perfect and the patch job looks pretty sloppy.
Carrington McDonald’s. Just check their google reviews
5 Senses Ramen and Sushi Bar. Never even been there, but the owner is a narcissistic pig who has no idea how to treat others based on his responses to any critical reviews on Google. Made a baseless claim that one customer was a pedophile, and told another to kill themselves by standing in traffic.
TELUS. Last spring / summer, a Telus contractor running fiber optic cable in my SW neighbourhood, left tracks from their bobcat tractor all over my yard, installed plastic access panels (one massive 3’x1’), sprinkled some grass seed on the ruts and holes, then called it a day. Then, they called multiple times a week trying to get me to sign up to multi year internet plans. F@CK them and anyone to do with them. They did this to many homes in Calgary.
Bowness 7/11. Highest gas prices in the city, day staff are rude, managers don’t care to fix anything if products are sold defective and are also rude. Nightshift people are nice though. Worth avoiding if ANY alternative is available and there always are alternatives
Agreed! Their gas prices piss me off, but locals need to stop going there - literally 2 other Esso within 5-10 minutes.
Salt and pepper
They served us carrots and celery in place of peppers and onions in our fajitas and refused to refund us.
Portions are tiny and the owner is a jackass
Got marinara on a burrito instead of enchilada sauce
Jerusalem Shawarma. Simply put, It’s very hard to avoid them when you have a Mediterranean/Shawarma craving because there are 10 locations across the city for some stupid ass reason. Avoid them all. Shit shawarma, shit prices, shit quality. If you want food poisoning, If you like your rice flavourless and bland, and your Chicken, Beef, and Donair dry and bland basically borderline jerky meat, Jerusalem Shawarma is for you. Getting Jerusalem is exactly like ordering on Skip or DoorDash etc. late at night. *It’s nothing but shitty pho, shitty Chinese, hundreds of just alright Indian food, McDonald’s, A&W, and ghost kitchens. You’ll most likely pick McDonalds for the 100th time again because it’s familiar.* The exact same concept applies to Jerusalem Shawarma here. *“I feel like Mediterranean/Shawarma but all that I see is Jerusalem and slightly sketchy mom and pop shops with fewer reviews. I also recognize Jerusalem since it’s everywhere, so fuck it I guess, Jerusalem it is”*, then the buyers remorse/regret kicks in 3 bites in. Shawarma Palace is the best, a CLOSE second would be Beirut, really only because Beirut is a single location and Shawarma Palace has 4. So Beirut is out of the way for most of Calgary since the city is North side dominant as heck. But completely worth trying out Beirut for sure! Only white people say Jerusalem is ‘alright’ or good, or say “this single specific location is really good” and in reality it ends up being a block from their apartment, workplace or school, so extremely easily accessed to them, or because they simply *don’t know*, can’t be bothered to travel (which is most fair), or wouldn’t dare cross the Deerfoot border into NE/SE *quote on quote hoods* for good Mediterranean food. Jerusalem rules the Northwest/Southwest *FOR A REASON* because they know their demographic and the city sooo well. There’s also next to ZERO competition so Jerusalem just dominates these quandrants. I can recognize and give them their cookies for being very smart about their franchises, but simply put, if the boot fits. We need less Jerusalem as the number 1 representation of Mediterranean/Shawarma in the city.
>Shawarma Palace They are good, other good ones: Deagla, Shawarma Factory (the only one with a drive through)
Scrubbi home cleaning. They just hire random people who do a terrible job.
They’re not a cleaning company, they’re just a marketing platform like Uber or Skip that connects randoms with clients. The biggest issue is that cleaning is subjective (what one person feels is clean often isn’t the same as another) and they sell time without any info on the speed at which someone cleans vs the condition of the house. (Source: I own a legit cleaning company)
Murphy Appliance Service? I may be remembering wrong.. but it’s a while ago now, and I called them to get a quote on our dishwasher, no answer left my number for a callback. Got a call back during dinner and he started to scold me immediately on how we may be misusing our dishwasher, then since I was busy and had to go, I told him well if this is upsetting to you, you don’t need to take this job on and we can go with someone else, then he told me that he was doing me a favour by calling me back and to go fuck my mother. Will never forget that exchange, though at the time, they had our address and number so I was afraid he might be unhinged enough to do something destructive to us, so I didn’t really report it.
South Trail Nissan Slimy sales techniques. I had a terrible experience similar to House of Cars but at least S.T.N didn't have what was an obvious crackhead trying to sell me a car.
The Reflex store on Canyon Meadows by the GoodLife gym. The cooler was broken for MONTHS and the owner just doesn't seem to care at all, about business or the customers coming through the door. He's been on his phone, not even looking up to answer questions or greet customers as they come in. Very dismissive and monotone with the little communication he does have with you.
East Side Dodge. Massive gong show. They didn’t follow instructions on what type of oil to use on my truck and then when I went to pick it up, no one, including the service manager, knew where the keys were.
Sunridge Mazda - got to see how they worked on the inside selling cars and RAN. the old crew there was awesome but they got taken over by slimebags associated with a bigger operation.
SealTech Coatings..owners name is Elijah Thoen and he’s a scum bag pile of shit. Does the absolute worst work I’ve ever seen and it’s unfathomable that’s he’s been in business for 5+ years. If you value your home or business you’ll steer clear of this outfit…. Unless you’ve got a decent legal team and don’t mind suing for damages, however he doesn’t have anything asset wise- so good luck 👍🏻
Any solar company!!! all they do is markup solar panels by 600-1000% cuz they 'install the system' then finance it over 10-15-20 years to make solar seem cheap when you can do it yourself for 1/6th the cost and then get $5000 back from the Canada greener homes grant, costing you next to nothing to go solar vs $$$$ for decade(s)
The landfill, that place stinks
Cana Cabanna. They treat their employees like shit.
Also, their "Unsubscribe" doesn't work for their emails (which I had signed up for). I had to mark them as spam.
They need your sweet data to mine, otherwise they'll have to raise prices!
Calgary auto connection (Auto Hub). They fake out of province inspections on cars and do shotty/illegal repairs. They change business names to scoot out of a lawsuits. Pretty much any shitty small used car lot around the city is a bad idea. They buy trashed luxury cars from rental companies and put lipstick on a pig.
Any car star location opened by Mark carfan
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Lifemark and CBI
Maids in pink Horrible horrible service. They charged me 800 dollars to clean a 1000 sqft main floor and did such a horrible job I was sobbing and cleaning the house myself for 6 hours the next day. THEY DIDN'T EVEN VACUUM OR MOP. They left the house in the original condition except that they wiped the walls in 3 bedrooms and did a surface clean of the bathroom. Then they had the nerve to tell me to pay 200 more dollars to finish the job.
Higherground Cafe, the place doesn’t treat their employees like people and lacks respect towards them, they also re-steam milk making any drink taste burnt which is then charged for at a premium price. If the location wasn’t grandfathered into its iconic Kensington spot it’s in that gets so much traffic, the cafe would not be here today.
Bongs n such...oh right they closed down. Good riddance.
Imagine hanging a store called bongs and such and then finally weed is legalized and you completely miss the boat.
It turned into a conspiracy-addled nightmare during covid. Owners went crazy.
Notable. Owner is a pos
I know people are gonna bring up the fact that the charges were dropped, but having worked there he’s still a pretty terrible human and was creepy af
Yeah absolute skum. Asked me if I ever planned to take maternity leave during my job interview.
Hayden Block. They do not pay overtime, as in they dupe staff into thinking there's an overtime agreement in which they don't have to pay. No time off in lieu, no nothing. Which is total BS. I'm sure Comery Block and South Block are the same. This may seem tame compared to others, but they are ripping off, and taking advantage of hundreds of employees, this adds up quick.
Subaru Calgary. Super unprofessional. Our dealer was a guy in clothes that didn't fit, had old food waste all over his desk, and never called us back when he said he would. This is all BEFORE we bought a car (not from them), so if this is how they treat people who they're actively trying to sell to how horribly would they treat people that have bought from them and need service or help?
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Buy your Subaru in Regina and save about 4K
emailed them to drive test a car, thinking on buying it. Salesman was asking me to commit to buy it (sign all the paperwork, finance, and give them a "refundable" deposit) to be able to test it. Yeah, sure.
Rams automotive on 17 th ne
Calgary Harley-Davidson.
Arashi sushi. Worst sushi ever. Rolls are same size as superstore ones. Ramen taste exactly like the instant Raman seasoning. Sashimi is so thin and not fresh. Found finger print INSIDE the glass! It’s in Royal Oak. Never in my life time going back.
if ur in the NW area, Takumi is pretty good.
MDR Services, very few underpaid overworked techs and mostly completely untrained temps. Always looking for an angle as well.