No, we won't deliver to the place we delivered to before

[An Haddock]

My business partner just got off the phone with some idiots at a pizza place who let their computer tell them how to think.


Background: business partner lives on the outskirts of town - technically it's the next town over, but they use the same municipal building and services.

Anyway - the pizza place doesn't deliver to his house. No problem there. It's a bit of a haul and he understands that.


The problem is that their computer must have flagged the phone number so no matter what address is associated with the phone number, they don't deliver there.

Our shop is on the same main street as the pizza place, about 12 - 14 blocks away. I have personally gotten at least a few dozen deliveries from them over the last few years. I KNOW they deliver here.

Unfortunately, since my biz partner used his cell phone instead of the store phone to call, it seems they've now blacklisted our business address now. The conversation went something like this:

"We don't deliver there."
"You delivered here a week ago, and two weeks before that."
"Well the computer says we can't deliver there."
"Can I speak to a manager."
*manager gets on phone*
"We don't deliver there."
"Well there's a second floor. How about you deliver to there."
"We can't do that."
"I know what the problem is - your computer is wrong. You guys have delivered here many times before."
"Well we can't deliver there."
"Can I get the owner's name? And can you have him call me?"
*gives owner's name*
"What's his last name?"
*won't provide it*
"So he has a secret identity?"


And so forth.

Just for fun, I tried calling myself a moment later from the store phone. Unfortunately they must have flagged the address in the computer so anyone calling from any phone number can't get a delivery to this address.

My conversation went something like this:

"You guys delivered twice here in the last three weeks."
"We can't deliver there."
"You last delivered here five days ago. So that changed in the last five days?"



Annoying. At least if I called from the store phone before I could get a delivery. Now I can't even do that because they flagged the address and not just his cell phone number.


Point is - there's a severe lack of common sense going on here. I guarantee if I walk next door to either one of our neighbors and use their phone and address to place an order, they'll deliver it. But these people have their heads so far up their asses that they can't comprehend the reason they can't deliver to our biz address is because his home address was flagged for being too far. And now it's spread from his cell number to our shop number, like some sort of fucked up plague.


I don't know if the owner will actually call but I guarantee my biz partner will write them a scathing letter.

[eltf177]

Unless the pizza is that good I'd just drop these morons and order from someplace else...

[wolfie]

Is it a chain or an independent? If independent, you're out of luck. If it's a chain, call corporate and let them know what's going on (i.e. they blacklisted address X because your boss's cellphone was from out of area). Corporate won't want to lose a customer, so they'll order the branch to re-whitelist your place of business. Of course, I wouldn't put it beyond those idiots to tamper with the food.

[registerrodeo]

So, they decide to use an algorithm that blocks a MOBILE phone number because an ADDRESS is unable to be delivered to??? And now, their scornful program is now so pissed at this phone number it will NOT allow it to even be used in a location that is in the delivery area? They are aware that these new fangled phones all those hip cats are using these days move around and can order (thus giving the business money) from an approved area????? And these employees and their manager stick completely to their robotic script quite nicely..good little corporate minions..goooood minions, please don't use common sense or a decent thought process, just piss off a regular customer because your H.A.L computer decided they are nevereverever getting your deliciousness again.

What a bunch of fuck wits

[scruff]

I've had a similar situation, in my last three addresses, all in my town centre.

It's a convoluted victorian town, so depending on how a stores website/address database is set up, sometimes they can find me, sometimes they can't.

And yes, my regular pizza place cannot find me and refuses to deliver if I use their website or official phone number (which must go to an off-location call centre, as the whole "but you've delivered here only last month" leaves them completely unfazed). However, if I use Justeat.com, no problem.

Interestingly Tesco's can find my current address for delivering vouchers, but their goods delivery webpage is set up differently, and cannot find me.

[rose_metal_nz]

It sounds like it's the address itself that's on the "do not deliver" list not the numbers themselves. Not much I think you can probably do about that, other than perhaps turning up on foot with a copy of the receipts from your previous deliveries and ask them what's changed...

[An Haddock]

Is it a chain or an independent? If independent, you're out of luck. If it's a chain, call corporate and let them know what's going on (i.e. they blacklisted address X because your boss's cellphone was from out of area). Corporate won't want to lose a customer, so they'll order the branch to re-whitelist your place of business. Of course, I wouldn't put it beyond those idiots to tamper with the food.

It's independent. Not a major loss, we have several good pizza places in the area.

Still annoying, though. Willful ignorance.

It sounds like it's the address itself that's on the "do not deliver" list not the numbers themselves. Not much I think you can probably do about that, other than perhaps turning up on foot with a copy of the receipts from your previous deliveries and ask them what's changed...

It is now, but it wasn't before. I must have ordered from them dozens of times from the store phone. It's only now that my biz partner used his cell phone that they flagged our address.

I flat-out did ask the girl when I called what had changed in 5 days (roughly the last time I had ordered from them and they delivered) - she didn't have an answer. Just played dumb.

[Jetfire]

To spite them, I might go to a gas station or someplace just a couple doors away from your place and call in an order from that address. Then after they say it's all good, say you want to change the address and see how bad the BSOD is.

Option B, I'd get on Yelp or Google and leave a review of their (lack of) delivery options.

[LillFilly]

I had an apartment address that simply DID NOT format to the way some companies needed to input the address to send mail/delivery to me; they couldn't make any changes to those computerized input areas. It was a 50/50 shot that I was going to be able to be mailed a package; mostly I had to pick it up at the post office on the opposite side of town. And pizza places just COULD NOT find me! Cabs couldn't find my ex's work either; he'd see them turn into the drive for the apartments across from his workplace and drive aimlessly around while he stood at the end of the road they were supposed to take, waving for them; but that's because the road he worked on was called X-way, X-drive, X-lane, X-parkway depending on what map/phone/gps you used.

[gerund]

I live on a street that is shaped like a broken "L". Before the broken bit is one block of low numbers and after that is all the large numbers up to 56. Only problem is, when the lower part of the "L" ends it becomes another name even though there is no bend. The street goes straight and changes name at an intersection.

All the maps had my street change name to the other name at the bend of the "L" and only had the numbers go up to 40 which missed my house out.

I have had a freight company ring me and tell me that there is no such number. My reply was, "That's funny, I'm standing in it." They found it after a while.

So what I did was go to all the maps I could access and put in corrections. With an explanation. It took a few months, but now the street shows correctly on google, yahoo and Tomtom maps. It seems that one of them is the master for a lot of other maps as the change has flowed through to other mapping systems. Now I don't have any trouble with deliveries, taxis or visitors.

[Argabarga]

I live on a street that is shaped like a broken "L". Before the broken bit is one block of low numbers and after that is all the large numbers up to 56. Only problem is, when the lower part of the "L" ends it becomes another name even though there is no bend. The street goes straight and changes name at an intersection.
.

For added fun, there's a street/road out here that changes names when you cross the invisible line dividing township "A" from township "B"

There's no intersection, no stop sign, not even a bump or change in the quality of the pavement, just a sign on the shoulder saying

"END WHATEVER VALLEY ROAD"
"BEGIN SOMETHINGELSE CREEK ROAD"

Wonder how many people THAT'S tripped up?

And the whole reason for that was petty retaliation by the residents in Township "A". They didn't like the fact that their mail had a "hick town" address instead of the "prestigious University town" address they EXPECTED they'd have when they bought their country McMansion... so they petitioned the postal service to change it. The postal service said "you have a hick town address because hick town's post office delivers your mail because you're in hick town's zip code, and we see no reason to redraw it". So, to get "even" they petitioned the township to change the name of the road.... buncha' screamin' babies.....

Even better (and by which I mean worse) is three streets in town that are in the same neighborhood, but all have the same "first" name

"Sunset Drive" "Sunset Circle" "Sunset Heights"

Yeah, we don't much care for that, but we're at least local and can figure it out after a while, one-shot freight/package deliverers? I feel your pain.

[EvilEmpryss]

I agree that they're totally in the wrong for not using common sense and maybe looking up a map or previous delivery orders to verify that the location is in fact within their delivery area, but this is CS: how many times have we read stories about sucky customers trying to use "but you did it last week!" as an excuse to try and get something they shouldn't?

Have you tried stopping by in person to clarify what's going on? I know I'd be ticked, because my cellphone number is out-of-state from where I'm currently living, and I'd hate for someone to block me from delivery because they can't use common sense. A little healthy skepticism is one thing, but when all the evidence points to the truth, jeeze.

[An Haddock]

I live on a street that is shaped like a broken "L". Before the broken bit is one block of low numbers and after that is all the large numbers up to 56. Only problem is, when the lower part of the "L" ends it becomes another name even though there is no bend. The street goes straight and changes name at an intersection.
.

I've posted before about my pizza troubles... I used to live one town over, literally 2 blocks from a Dominos. But because our town and the next one over share a zip code and the main street, they would continuously drive all the way down to the next town over and wonder why we weren't answering the door.

Even after repeating to the guy taking the order ad nauseum that we were the SAME TOWN AS YOU GUYS not the next town over, they still relied on their GPS and a lack of common sense. Until we called corporate. After that, screwed up deliveries were few and far between.

[An Haddock]

I agree that they're totally in the wrong for not using common sense and maybe looking up a map or previous delivery orders to verify that the location is in fact within their delivery area, but this is CS: how many times have we read stories about sucky customers trying to use "but you did it last week!" as an excuse to try and get something they shouldn't?

Have you tried stopping by in person to clarify what's going on? I know I'd be ticked, because my cellphone number is out-of-state from where I'm currently living, and I'd hate for someone to block me from delivery because they can't use common sense. A little healthy skepticism is one thing, but when all the evidence points to the truth, jeeze.

I could understand if we had only ordered from them a couple of times, but in the 10 years the shop has been open, we have ordered from them literally dozens of times. I probably average ordering lunch from them once or twice a month.


I',m not going to bother... I'll let my biz partner deal with it. But since the counter girl and the manager have decided to display willful ignorance, the next call or letter is to the owner. And even though they decided to not reveal his secret identity to us, we found his full name in about 30 seconds through Google.

[Jay 2K Winger]

For added fun, there's a street/road out here that changes names when you cross the invisible line dividing township "A" from township "B"

There's no intersection, no stop sign, not even a bump or change in the quality of the pavement, just a sign on the shoulder saying

"END WHATEVER VALLEY ROAD"
"BEGIN SOMETHINGELSE CREEK ROAD"

Wonder how many people THAT'S tripped up?

And the whole reason for that was petty retaliation by the residents in Township "A". They didn't like the fact that their mail had a "hick town" address instead of the "prestigious University town" address they EXPECTED they'd have when they bought their country McMansion... so they petitioned the postal service to change it. The postal service said "you have a hick town address because hick town's post office delivers your mail because you're in hick town's zip code, and we see no reason to redraw it". So, to get "even" they petitioned the township to change the name of the road.... buncha' screamin' babies.....

Even better (and by which I mean worse) is three streets in town that are in the same neighborhood, but all have the same "first" name

"Sunset Drive" "Sunset Circle" "Sunset Heights"

Yeah, we don't much care for that, but we're at least local and can figure it out after a while, one-shot freight/package deliverers? I feel your pain.

If I didn't know better, I'd say you were talking about Northern Virginia.

The main road outside our neighborhood (let's call it "East Blank Road") turns a corner. If you come north from Major Route on East Blank Road, it will turn a corner. If you go straight on the road that East Blank Road had been on, it becomes "Occupations Road," and then a mile later, Occupations turns a corner as well, and the straight road becomes "City Parkway."

And that's not even talking about the clusterfuck that is Arlington. *shudder*