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Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 02-28-2006, 03:21 PM   #1
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Bad Service Gripe Thread

This started as a reply to the rebate thread in FIRE and money, but I was wandering off-topic enough I decided to start a new thread.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas Proud
OH, almost forgot my Pizza Hut guarantee... they had the pan pizza a long time ago... get it in 15 minutes or the next one is free... mine took 30 minutes and I asked them about it... they said I never ordered it, then said I had not paid for it... well, they finally gave me the one I had ordered and paid for, but would not give me the next one free... that was about 20 years ago and the only time I have been back is if I 'had to' with others
Heh, yeah, I'm on a long-term boycott of Pizza Hut myself. Every one I've been to, worst service ever. Had some Pizza Hut a few times over the past 20 years, but it was pickup or delivery. I may not have patronized them at all in the past 10-12 years since I disocvered Little Caesar's, then Papa Johns then Donato's. Not sure how they stay in business...maybe they're a front for something. (When they got a pizza to you hot it was generally good, although that may have been because I waited 90 minutes for it in-store and was ravenous.)

Hijacking the thread further, I had ridiculous service from another restaurant lately. A bunch of techie guys, some from out of town, were working weekends on replacing the network infrastructure (6 6500-series stacks in 3 redundant pairs and other goodies). One night we worked really late and headed downtown for dinner, but most everything was closed. We went to an all-night place (Red Eye cafe, Indianapolis). Most of the guys ordered chicken Caesar salads, and I ordered a chicken sandwich. The wait was a bit long, and the waiter was ignoring our need for more drinks. (The place is pretty small; it's not like she couldn't see us.) Finally, the food comes. 1 trip, 2 trips, 3 trips brings the chicken Caesar salads and another dish, leaving only me without food. As an afterthought the waiter looks and me and says "oh, we're out of chicken."

I left out that we were starving when we left work and walked several blocks downtown trying to find a place open. I also left out we thought we found a place open, went in, seated ourselves after the waitstaff ignored us for 10 or so minutes (but shuffled by us regularly) and proceeded to be ignored, drinkless, for several more minutes until we were informed only 1 person was waiting tables, and that person wasn't offering to help us at that moment. A few more blocks' walk got us to the Red Eye. So, yeah, I was pretty hungry and tired by the time I heard they're out of chicken (which as you'll recall a whole paragraph ago was the same moment several plates of chicken were delivered to my tablemates).

Being as late as it was, with my tablemates chowing down, I didn't have a lot of recourse or motivation, and this was still my best bet for food soon. Or so I thought. I ordered a burger and turned down generous offers of sharing from my tablemates. Time went by....more time went by. I don't know how much time went by, but everybody finished eating, and we were sitting around BSing about this and that. We weren't getting my food, a check or any attention. At some point I told them to bring the burger "to go". We finally stood up and headed for the cashier who quickly took our money and handed me a box with my meal in it and had the nerve to charge us for the burger. The meal was on my company, and we were completely exhausted, and most of us were full, so we didn't argue the matter. We walked a few blocks back to our cars, and I munched what was a pretty good burger, but after waiting several hours for food I'm not sure I was objective about it.
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 02-28-2006, 03:54 PM   #2
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

Oh, that brings back memories. The worst waitress I ever encountered was at a Pizza Hut. She brought me lunch that was completely different from what I ordered, insisted that it was what I ordered and then started to argue with me about it. After she left our table in a huff, someone at another table flagged her down with the same problem. It turns out she'd gotten our orders swapped. The best part was that her solution was to swap our plates, never mind that we'd both had our hands all over the food while examining it.

With her "screw you" attitude, she managed to turn a simple mistake, easily forgiven, into a completely lousy experience.

Gosh, that was almost 20 years ago and I still haven't fogotten about it. Guess I can really hold a grudge...

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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 02-28-2006, 04:04 PM   #3
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

I've only been in one once, when I bought pizza for the construction 'crew' last summer. They charged me something like $15 a pop for a pizza I could eat in six bites. Apparently if you go in there without coupons you're screwed.

Then while waiting, I realized the PH was located inside one of the small buildings in an area that had totally flooded after a minor levy failure. This one had been under water completely. Then I looked around at the furniture and the carpet. The stuff was nowhere near newer than the flood. Swell. I hope they wiped all the mud out of the ovens at least.

My bad service goes out to an entire industry...the Voice Over IP telephone one. I've officially thrown in the towel and ordered a new SBC (now at&t) land line. After problems with vonage where I didnt even get a response from customer service for nearly a week, I've had several outage problems that lasted for hours and days, weird problems that made no sense, and been given the run around on known problems they pretended to not have. I checked into several of the others, and every one of them has had some sort of major systemwide outage for 1-2 days over the last year. Not something we can manage with a 1 year old in the house, even though we have several cell phones.

Not that the local phone co's are doing themselves any favor with their pricing, and they're getting killed by the taxes and regulatory fees. To get on a local line what I was getting on VOIP phones was about twice the cost. And that was before the 10-12 worth of taxes and fees got laid on top.

Next goes the cable modem. I may go back to dialup. I like the high speed internet, but comcast just jacked the price up to $54 a month. Thats stupid. No DSL available in my area. I might get a wireless ISP...there are a couple in my area. Prices look good but i have this funny feeling theres some hidden equipment or installation fee...
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 02-28-2006, 04:07 PM   #4
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

Quote:
Originally Posted by sc
Gosh, that was almost 20 years ago and I still haven't fogotten about it. Guess I can really hold a grudge...
She's a lot older now, but she's working the Pizza Hut in our neighborhood.

She's the reason that the chain went to take-out and stopped doing dine-in service on Oahu...
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 02-28-2006, 04:43 PM   #5
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

For a few years many years ago, Pizza hut was the only game in our town. We ordered carry out every Sunday. On those rare occassions when we actually got the pizza with the toppings we ordered it was cause for celebration. Like finding the prize in the box of Cracker Jacks. I would not voluntarily enter a Pizza Hut again.

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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 02-28-2006, 04:44 PM   #6
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cute n' Fuzzy Bunny


Next goes the cable modem. I may go back to dialup. I like the high speed internet, but comcast just jacked the price up to $54 a month. Thats stupid. No DSL available in my area. I might get a wireless ISP...there are a couple in my area. Prices look good but i have this funny feeling theres some hidden equipment or installation fee...
We just canceled the cable for being too expensive and went to a wireless ISP, Clearwire, for 19.95 a month. The just came to town so we were able to get them here for a free installation. The downside is the $5.00 monthly modem lease. What BS. Still, the whole thing is a lot less than cable and so far just as good.
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 02-28-2006, 05:06 PM   #7
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

Ours is 29.95 a month with a $75 installation fee, but no monthly hardware fees. 1500Kb/s down and 384 up. Not too bad.

I wish someone would offer a 128/128 or 256/128 for cheap, just to have a clean "always on" connection...
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 03-02-2006, 02:51 PM   #8
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

I just got my first Bad Gripe today with an order from Amazon.com.

I ordered an item through the tool catlog that I received in the mail recently after ordering the Kill-a-watt thing. I ordered a full size leatherman that had a bonus micro leatherman, free shipping and 10% of (some restrictions apply).

Well, I was charged shipping, didn't get the bonus item not the 10% discount. When I called customer service, the rep was not able to help me because my order was switched over to another company to fill. So after requesting and speaking to the 'lead' rep and listening to her mumbo jumbo about why I should have known my order was not coming from Amazon and why they would not stand by their catalog nor send me a shipping label, I'm filing a dispute with Visa. Visa's stance is that the billing company needs to take all the responsibility.

I'm sure I'll get the money refunded, but what a pain in the a$$. Amazon just lost my business.
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 03-02-2006, 02:56 PM   #9
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

Well SBC almost lost the business. In fact, I'm still thinking it over. I decided to drop VOIP and go back to "the utility" for somewhat better (ok, existant) customer service. After ordering online, I got an email saying they would confirm it in 24 hours and install it in 3 days. Its now four days later and i just got the order confirmation...with a note saying it wont be installed until after they get the ok to release my phone number from my old VOIP provider.

Lets see...my voip provider is AT&T Callvantage. My local phone company is A&T SBC. Anyone want to hazard a guess at how long this is going to take? :

And...my experience is that companies are pretty efficient about taking your order and your money, then the customer service sucks. These guys cant even take my money in a timely manner... :
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 03-02-2006, 03:56 PM   #10
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

Pizza Hut! What a joke. I'm from upstate NY originally, where real pizza is king. PH doesn't even taste like pizza to me.

OK, that's besides the point. I once went to one because my friend will only eat PH pizza. I asked for oregano to try to make the alledged "pizza" taste similar to something I was used to. "Oh, we don't carry that here." Unbelieveable.

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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 03-02-2006, 11:37 PM   #11
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeD
Pizza Hut! What a joke. I'm from upstate NY originally, where real pizza is king. PH doesn't even taste like pizza to me.

OK, that's besides the point. I once went to one because my friend will only eat PH pizza. I asked for oregano to try to make the alledged "pizza" taste similar to something I was used to. "Oh, we don't carry that here." Unbelieveable.

Mike D.
I have never bought pizza from these fast food chains. Do they even use mozzeralla or is it white american cheese?
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 03-03-2006, 09:27 AM   #12
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

Or melting cheese....as some fast food places call it.
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread
Old 03-03-2006, 09:33 AM   #13
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Re: Bad Service Gripe Thread

"Mystery cheese" is nothing!

When I was a kid, we used to go for taco's at a place called "The Taco Maker" on route 9 in Natick MA, after trips to the nearby lake.

At some point, one of my friends pointed out that they dont actually state any particular animal as producing the 'meat', it was just called "taco maker meat". Not beef, not chicken, not pork. Meat. So we asked the kid behind the register. He said he didnt know, but it came out of big cans from the Taco Maker Corporate office. Finally we got a manager to come out, and we registered out concern regarding large cans of nondescript meat that came from "the corporate office".

He should have left the taco maker and gone into marketing. He showed us about 72 teeth and with a big smile said "Fellas! Nothing to worry about! This is 100% pure all american meat!". Uh huh...but what kind? He gave us a good song and dance for a while, then also admitted that there were no ingredients list on the giant corporate can of 'meat'.

Needless to say, we stopped eating there...considering the cleanliness of the lake we swam in, this was no small decision :P
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