RadioShack
[related: Tandy Corporation]
Worldwide electronics retailer started in 1921 by the brothers Theodore and Milton Deuschmann to service the emerging ham radio field. After filing for bankruptcy in the mid 1960's it was purchased for the paltry sum of $300,000 by Charles D. Tandy of the Tandy Corporation. In the 1980's, Tandy refocused the company in two areas: 1) cheap electronics including semi-functional robots, disposable remote control vehicles, and strange internationally sourced (and often outdated) cables, and 2) home telephones. With the government-led break-up of Bell Systems, Radioshack became highly profitable and was, for a time, both the largest dealer of telephones in the United States and the primary supplier of components used for phone hacking (or, as it is colloquially known, phreaking). Following the sale of its subsidiary Memorex and the ill-advised purchase of the famously unprofitable Computer City in the 1990's, Radioshack's value again plummeted, despite experiencing a brief "pink twilight" as a supplier of computer hacking materials. As of 2012, Radioshack carried an "F" customer service rating with the Better Business Bureau, and was named by the Temkin Group, an independent research firm, as providing the worst customer service of any national retailer for six consecutive years. In its reports, Temkin cited many issues, including (but not limited to): severely undertrained and sometimes pre-pubescent employees, shell (gutted and non-functional) products, literally abandoned (though still partially stocked) locations in semi-operational suburban malls, and off-brand, universally non-compatible discount home computers with RAM rates easily surpassed by modern graphix calculators.
