What happens when a complaint is really a scam

[CaroPhoenix]

When customer complaints are really scams

Small article about what some scammers pull to get "free lunch".

[Mnemjian]

An old roommate of mine would do this sort of thing regularly He discovered that if you call Olive Garden's corporate and complain about this or that, they will send you a $25 gift card. So he would do it every month or so using different names and friend's addresses and they would just hand it over pretty much in order to be rid of him. A lot of times it's just easier to comp the complainers, I guess...

[mattm04]

Not just restaurants but people will order huge cakes, deli platters, etc, come back the next day with a few scraps left ad claim it was stake, hard, etc. and get upwards of $50 back sometimes.

[draggar]

Not just restaurants but people will order huge cakes, deli platters, etc, come back the next day with a few scraps left ad claim it was stake, hard, etc. and get upwards of $50 back sometimes.

I once had someone buy a case (10 pounds) of fresh cold water shrimp. Mind you, even though these are pinkish in color they were RAW.

They came back the next day with ONE shrimp (out of ten pounds, roughly 350-400 shrimp) saying it was raw and demanded their money back. (Even though the tag said that they were raw).

The really sad part is that a lot of consumers don't seem to care about this, they think it's not costing them money. Sadly, it is. The prices for the food are higher to cover for the losses and when a legitimate issue happens they may be scrutinized more.

Every Christmas, New Years, and Superbowl Sunday we'd always have 2-3 deli or seafood platters come back with barely any scraps left on them and complaints like "it was all rotten", "we didn't like it", etc..

I think food preparation businesses should have a policy - if you consume or don't return more than a certain amount, you do not get a refund. If you eat the whole steak, then it was god enough for you to eat, you don't deserve another one.

[Dips]

My favorite pizza place has that policy.

Bring back a pizza with only a few bites taken out of it, they'll replace the pizza for you.

If you bring back one slice, they replace one slice.

They sell the other 7 slices as individual slices. As a kind of an uplanned special of the hour.

If they look like they're going to get cold before they can be sold, they give them to customers they like as free samples.

[Lace Neil Singer]

The pizza place I used to work at had the policy that if you wanted a refund or replacement (you couldn't have both) you had to bring the pizza back to the shop... and it had to be intact or nearly intact. Bring back a pizza with a slice missing or a few crusts; you got nothing. SCs used to moan and complain about it but the boss reckoned that he could do without that kind of scammer's business anyway. Genuine complainers tended to bring back the whole pizza anyway. XD

[LillFilly]

Ironically, the day after I read this article, someone tried something that sounded fishy at one of the stores at my mall. It's ongoing and possibly a health issue, so I can't say much, but it does NOT have the ring of truth for sure and has us all shaking our heads!