Prank deliveries...

[RobotPlanet]

So I was browsing on Wikipedia today and I stumbled across an entry for George P. Burdell , a fictitious Georgia Tech alumni. I was intrigued by this section of the article:

"One of the first pranks to use George's name came after someone was snubbed by a fraternity he had intended to join. "That irritated [him]. He went out and ordered a truckload of furniture to be delivered c.o.d. to that fraternity. Of course, the order was made by George P. Burdell." (link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P._Burdell)

I started thinking of all the stories I've heard over the years about people ordering a ton of pizzas to someone else's house (as a prank), and other such goings-on. Have any of you had to deal with a situation like this? What does the poor delivery driver have to do? I just thought this was one sort of "prank" which probably is not much appreciated by the employees of the affected store.

[South Texan]

What does the poor delivery driver have to do? I just thought this was one sort of "prank" which probably is not much appreciated by the employees of the affected store.

While I was in college, if a prank order was made, the delivery guys would just knock on other room doors and offer the pizza at a discount. I know of a few people who would order a pizza to be delivered to their neighbors, and then when the neighbors refused the order, the "pranksters" would open their door and ask whether the guy wanted to sell it for cheap. After two or three times of this happening, the delivery guys got wise.

One Tuesday night while I was an R.A. my senior year in charge of a dorm, I was awakened about midnight by a pizza delivery guy from a local pizza place. Someone had ordered a 24-inch pizza with green olives, jalapenos and anchovies in my name. I groggily told him that I had not ordered it.

The guy literally started screaming at me that this was what *I* had ordered so he expected me to pay for it. I almost started laughing, but I managed just to say that the weird nature of the order should have tipped someone off that it probably was a bogus order. Whoever had ordered it had left the phone number of the pay phone in the lobby.

The guy asked to use my phone (this was way before the cell phone came about) so he could call in to his store. After he told his boss that I was refusing the order, I had to get on the phone and explain I had not ordered anything. The guy then spoke with his boss again and was authorized to offer it to me at a reduced price. I turned him down as I detest both green olives and anchovies - had it been just jalapenos, I would have paid the original price. He fussed that he was not going to be able to sell that odd a pizza to anyone else, but left. I had to remind him that he was not going to randomly knock on doors in my dorm at this hour to try to resell it as most of my guys were sleeping.

I felt bad for the business, but I could not help but wonder why whoever took that order that late at night did not call to verify it.

[MadMike]

Someone in the dorms (I later found out it was my one asshole roomate) did that to the local pizza place, and the guy was so pissed that he was ready to start refusing delivery to our building. It was a small mom and pop operation, so the owner would often do the deliveries himself. Since that was one of the few delivery places we had in our area, and because we felt bad for the guy, a couple friends and I chipped in and bought the pizzas. We were kind of in the mood for pizza anyway, and they didn't request any bizarre toppings, so it worked out fine.

Another asshole roommate I had (why me?) once bragged that he called in a delivery, and gave them the address of a competing pizza place.

[repsac]

Oh come on. you gotta admit that the last one would be funny to see. Call Domino's and give them Pizza Hut's address...

[bainsidhe]

Not funny. Never funny. No way, no how. Growing up, we used to get prank pizza deliveries now and then. Usually for something pretty ordinary, so my Dad would decide to pay for and keep the pizza. Reason why this really bothers me? We were pretty poor growing up and the money used for pizza could have purchased a few meals worth of groceries for the family. So it was a nice "treat" for us kids, but it really wasn't if you catch my drift.

Then came the day when a pizza guy came to our door. Again, Dad was going to buy the pizza until he found out it was SEVEN of them. He refused. The driver was upset, the store tried to make us buy them and around and around it went. Eventually a police report was filed. The idiot pranksters gave their own phone number because the pizza place wanted to call back and confirm a 7 pizza order. So the cops tracked down the four bored teenagers (classmates, of mine it figures) and they had to reimburse for the pizza and each had to write our family a letter of apology. In retrospect, they should be grateful they didn't have to pay for wasted time of the police force.

[Eric the Grey]

I thought I had a similar situation once. Pizza guy comes to our door, less than a month after moving into the apartment.

Since I hadn't ordered the pizza, I told him he must be wrong, but he insisted it was the right address, but the phone numbers were different.

I offered to pay for them, since they were supremes, but didn't have enough for a tip. He called the number only to find out the guy who ordered them, used to live in my apartment.

I bought them and had pizza for a few days, but they poor delivery guy didn't get a tip. The original guy was outside this store's delivery area and had to place another order.


Eric the Grey

[iviles]

The idiot pranksters gave their own phone number because the pizza place wanted to call back and confirm a 7 pizza order. .

When I worked in pizza hell we had to comfirm large orders. Sometimes things would get passed us though. I would have to then void the order and offer it in store at discount but most of the time I would just feed the shift (that is until some of the drivers took advantige.)

[fish3k1]

I could not help but wonder why whoever took that order that late at night did not call to verify it.

I know what you mean - we always had to do a call back on any order we were suspicious about.

Occasionally we'd get people using joke names for real orders too - that was a pain, but it's what happens when your delivery area includes a lot of students.

[Andara Bledin]

Oh, yeah, food delivery pranks are never funny.

Well, if the person the delivery is sent to will actually buy the stuff and give a tip, then it's not so bad, but any other time, it's a serious waste of time and money and it takes money away from the poor delivery guy who has to deal with the whole thing.

^-.-^

[greensinestro]

When I worked for Bellsouth, we had a guy who called in upset, not with us, but with whomever ordered twenty pizzas, ten orders of crazy bread, five dozen orders of chicken wings, and twenty liters of soda. He wanted us to trace the call that had come in, and it was not anything we had the ability to do. This was a couple hundred dollars in food that was going to go to waste because of some selfish person who decided to pull a prank.

How do places like this combat problems like this? I like how you can order pizzas on-line, and some require a debit or credit card payment before the order is processed. On the other hand, not all businesses have this in place. How do they prevent this?

[fish3k1]

How do places like this combat problems like this? I like how you can order pizzas on-line, and some require a debit or credit card payment before the order is processed. On the other hand, not all businesses have this in place. How do they prevent this?

Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware the only way to deal with crap like this is for whoever takes the order to be savvy enough to get a phone number "in case the driver can't find the address/there's a problem with the order/other arbitrary excuse' and then do a callback a few minutes later just to confirm the order/address/whatever excuse you can think of just to call the guy back.

At least this way, if it does turn out to be a crank you have some way of tracing the a/hole.

[JLRodgers]

....
How do places like this combat problems like this? I like how you can order pizzas on-line, and some require a debit or credit card payment before the order is processed. On the other hand, not all businesses have this in place. How do they prevent this?

I know when I worked at a pizza place, you just had a feeling about the orders when you took them. Basically any order that had weird toppings (around me, asking for anchovies was suspect ). We didn't deliver though, so the worst thing that would happen is someone working got a free pizza and the management got a note explaining what had happened.

Like for us, an order of more than 2 pizzas (two breadsticks, two liters of pop) was automatically suspect since almost every order was for two or fewer pizzas. The few times we had an order that was large (ex: 20 pizzas, etc) was being sent to the college, and we made it clear that any large orders (over 5) could have a discount, and required paying in advance (or had to be approved from a business or organization in person).

We only had one pizza a month actually going to "waste" due to some "prank" or similar. We lost more money from an employee making up 5-10 pizzas a night to take home for a party (and didn't pay for them either....) Little did he know we actually inventoried the boxes so we caught him.

As a note though... we (rather I and the other manager) did call a place once to "confirm" their order since it was a bit funny sounding. And it turned out to be a legit order, they just liked really weird toppings.

[Aethian]

I got called back for a 'prank order' friends were visiting and the dogs had feasted on that nights dinner. So we all poneyed up some money and placed a huge order online for to be delivered with cash as the payment. The total was well over 100 dollars.

So I get a call from the pizza place and agree that ther order was real, but while talking the cell goes dead because of a dead spot. Shrugging I figured the guys knew me at this place and would still deliver right? Well an hour went by and no pizza, it was a big order so we didn't worry. Another hour goes by and still no order so I called the place on the landline and inquired about our order. The place cancelled it because they figured I was lying about the pizza order being as big and that we were going to pay cash.

So I told them they lost out on a lot of money for a true order and the delivery guy lost out on a fourty dollar tip. When they said they could still get it to us in a hour or so I declined and we all went out to eat.

[JLRodgers]

....
So I get a call from the pizza place and agree that ther order was real, but while talking the cell goes dead because of a dead spot. Shrugging I figured the guys knew me at this place and would still deliver right?

I would've called back myself -- just to be sure. But then I almost always call back if a phone goes dead while talking, even if the only thing I was going to say was "bye".

[Fiyero]

On the rare occasions that I have ordered pizza for delivery (it is quite an extravagance in my opinion but yummy) I have always paid in advance by credit card.

I hate that people can do things like this, whenever I have ordered pizza they have asked for a phone number, I guess they have to weigh up the time and cost of phoning people back against the risk.

Curses I want pizza now