Top 10 Sites to File a Complaint in 2016

When looking at reviews in any industry and on any platform, it’s important to recognize that happy customers rarely leave feedback skewing the results presented on the site.  Think about it.  When was the last time you went to a complaint site and wrote a detailed comment on a company when they did something great?  It’s also important to remember that the larger the company the more complaints you’ll see:  McDonald’s serves millions of customers while Joe’s Burgers serves hundreds.  Intuitively, it makes sense that there are a lot of complaints against Mickey D’s.

HissingKitty has been around since 2010 and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I’ve worked with the founding team in a previously life and they built the site to help the average consumer, not to make money. Their complaint form is by far the easiest to use and they have dozens of different categories and always seem to be adding more. The only problem I have with the website is it sometimes they don’t post all the complaints they receive. Sometimes I have added one or two and they get stuck in moderation for weeks it seems like.
My3Cents is one of the newer consumer search sites focusing on feedback about home improvement, shopping, travel, restaurants, insurance companies and more to help you make better purchase decisions.  The site is organized by both company and category making it easy to find what you’re looking for.  Their review form is very straight forward and easy to navigate.  Reviews are posted after the company checks their authenticity.
Ripoff Report is a privately owned and operated for-profit founded by Ed Magedson.[1] The Ripoff Report has been online since December 1998 and is operated by Xcentric Ventures, LLC which is based in Tempe, Arizona. Ripoff report is one of the oldest consumer reporting sites and has been the subject of quite a bit of controversy over the years for allowing anyone to complain about anything.  Their motto is, “Don’t let them get away with it”.
PissedConsumer.com is a little different than most of the other sites reviewed.  They have report having 604,067 detailed reviews.  Their reviews tend to be a little longer and more detailed than some of the other complaint sites because they provide some example letters that people seem to use in crafting their own reviews.
Gripeo is a newer (2012) startup in complaints management that leverages social media to get the word out.  The service provides tools to companies to allow them to respond to complaints.  Being socially based the complaint is heard but eventually “goes away”, which really models real life vs. the extortive behavior some of the other platforms employ.
As of May 5, 2016 it does not appear that the site is actively working in the complaints posting and resolution space.
Customer Service Scoreboard has an interesting take on the complaints space allowing users to compare companies on a variety of metrics such as your ability to reach a human, resolve problems, cancel accounts, etc.  They also have a very deep database of reviews showing the best of the worst.