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Terrible Takeaway Experience, what to do?
mattkidd
Posts: 11 Forumite
Hey!
Seeking a little advice on next steps I should take. I recently had quite a bad experience with a local take-away.
On the 13th June, I decided I would order a take-away through JustEat. A local Chinese restaurant in Bournemouth named Pure Oriental. The restaurant/take-away house seemed to have a mixture of good reviews therefore at the time I was quite relaxed in placing the order.
The takeaway arrived within the quoted time of 50 minutes; I ordered a total of 4 dishes. My first reaction of the dishes were they were all rather cold, as though they had been cooked for sometime, with condensation clearly evident inside the container tubs.
One of the dishes particularly the worst of the four (Crispy duck) not only was cold, but was also incredibly dry and incredibly poor quality with more bones than actual meat. All four tasted extremely poor quality and cold.
My first intention was to directly contact the restaurant and make a complaint; in the aim of receiving either a refund or replacement, unfortunately there was no answer. I therefore directly contacted JustEat who managed to contact the manager directly, who of which informed JustEat she was not prepared to speak to me and instead would write me a letter.
This is the letter I have since received:
I am gob-smacked at the level of customer service. I have not been offered a solution at time of delivery or even now days later. I also feel as though I am being accused of having poor taste. I have since spoken to JustEat who inform me they are unable to refund me as the payment is made with the restaurant. (Although my card statement makes the payment to JustEat). The manager is refusing to refund me and directly speak to me. She is claiming my complaint is simply due to poor taste.
What can if anything can I do? At the end of the day its £20 so not incredible amounts of money, however its the principal. My takeaway was inedible and It resulted in me ordering a second on the same evening (From someone else). The payment was made on a Barclay Card.
Thankyou
Seeking a little advice on next steps I should take. I recently had quite a bad experience with a local take-away.
On the 13th June, I decided I would order a take-away through JustEat. A local Chinese restaurant in Bournemouth named Pure Oriental. The restaurant/take-away house seemed to have a mixture of good reviews therefore at the time I was quite relaxed in placing the order.
The takeaway arrived within the quoted time of 50 minutes; I ordered a total of 4 dishes. My first reaction of the dishes were they were all rather cold, as though they had been cooked for sometime, with condensation clearly evident inside the container tubs.
One of the dishes particularly the worst of the four (Crispy duck) not only was cold, but was also incredibly dry and incredibly poor quality with more bones than actual meat. All four tasted extremely poor quality and cold.
My first intention was to directly contact the restaurant and make a complaint; in the aim of receiving either a refund or replacement, unfortunately there was no answer. I therefore directly contacted JustEat who managed to contact the manager directly, who of which informed JustEat she was not prepared to speak to me and instead would write me a letter.
This is the letter I have since received:
My Staff informed me that you telephoned to Justeat to complain about the taste of the food you placed on the 13th June 2013.
I am sorry that you were dissapointed with the meal. At pure Oriental our staff aim to give very high level of service and the chefs are highly trained in Asian Cusinine specifically in Peking, Szechuan, Cantonese, Malaysian and Thai cusines. We are on of the busiest takeaways in the Bournemouth and Poole area, serving over 400 customers every week.
On the night when your order was placed we delivered 68 meals, served up aromatic crispy duck 10 times, chef special fried rice 5 times and Kung Po chicken 8 times. We recieved just youe complaint. This is not to say that your complaint was not legitimate. However we do have to put this into pespective. While we aim for 100% customer satisfication we do have to accept that certain cutomers would not like the way my chefs cook certain dishes. Hence when we recieve negative feedback such as yours out response is that it be wise not to use us again and that we accept that you xould go to the hundreds of takeawaus within your delivery postcodes.
Yours Faithfully
Mrs Elaine Emmons
Director
I am gob-smacked at the level of customer service. I have not been offered a solution at time of delivery or even now days later. I also feel as though I am being accused of having poor taste. I have since spoken to JustEat who inform me they are unable to refund me as the payment is made with the restaurant. (Although my card statement makes the payment to JustEat). The manager is refusing to refund me and directly speak to me. She is claiming my complaint is simply due to poor taste.
What can if anything can I do? At the end of the day its £20 so not incredible amounts of money, however its the principal. My takeaway was inedible and It resulted in me ordering a second on the same evening (From someone else). The payment was made on a Barclay Card.
Thankyou
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Comments
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Food is a matter of taste, what one person thinks is great another thinks is terrible.
Leave feedback on Just-Eat and dont order from them again.0 -
If they respond to every complaint in the same way, they will end up going out of business. Have you tried contacting a local newspaper - they might be interested in a restaurant that tells it's customers to eat elsewhere...."You were only supposed to blow the bl**dy doors off!!"0
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Find a local take away you like and trust, go in person the first few times and ensure that if there is a problem you contact them immediately and advise them of the problem. Once you are happy with them continue to use them but try placing your order by phone and either collect it in person or pay a supplement for delivery.
There are some things the internet just does not work for and ordering a take away through a "take away broker", who is of course being paid a commission by the restaurant for your order, is not one of the internet successes.
If its your first time using Just Eat, put it down to experience and leave a review of the restaurant, after all it was the existing reviews which convinced you it was worth a try.John0 -
You didn't like the food much,that's your taste.There are chinese takeaways I prefer over others,that is my taste.
Such is life.
Why would you expect a refund?
You tried every dish
Btw there are a few who do dry duck,with a large bone inIf women are birds and freedom is flight are trapped women Dodos?0 -
maninthestreet wrote: »If they respond to every complaint in the same way, they will end up going out of business. .
Unfortunately, in a large town with a huge student population and tourist population, this doesn't happen as there are always new customers around who have never heard of them.0 -
You didn't like the food much,that's your taste.There are chinese takeaways I prefer over others,that is my taste.
Such is life.
Why would you expect a refund?
You tried every dish
Btw there are a few who do dry duck,with a large bone in
As I understand food can be determined on taste of course, some things taste better to others. But regardlress of where you order food from there's the standard you come to expect.
- Food is warm/cooked
- Food is edible
and when those two standards are not met, you don't believe you should be entitled to a refund? The food was inedible and instantly thrown away.
Would you eat this? postimg.org/image/f26thlamt0 -
Didn't you see the BBC Watchdog article about JustEat?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mg74/features/just-eat-watchdog-investigation0 -
As I understand food can be determined on taste of course, some things taste better to others. But regardlress of where you order food from there's the standard you come to expect.
- Food is warm/cooked
- Food is edible
and when those two standards are not met, you don't believe you should be entitled to a refund? The food was inedible and instantly thrown away.
Would you eat this? postimg.org/image/f26thlamt
That link/address does not work.
The food was not instantly thrown away as you have stated they all tasted cold and 'very poor quality'.
How 'cold' exactly?Chinese is never what you could describe as hot.It is often warm to cool.
Condensation on some containers is common too and often depends on the dish.Hot food being placed in a container with a lid will cause condensation.If it hadn't just been cooked before going in it would not have caused condensation!If women are birds and freedom is flight are trapped women Dodos?0 -
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I agree. A cut and paste of the letter form the boss speaks volumes.InsideInsurance wrote: ».... Leave feedback on Just-Eat and dont order from them again.You might as well ask the Wizard of Oz to give you a big number as pay a Credit Referencing Agency for a so-called 'credit-score'0
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