To think this Indian restaurant manager was unreasonable? Or was I?

[StarlightRobbery]

Last night I ordered an Indian takeaway as a treat. When it arrived it was mostly ok, although the rice was cold and the sauce in one particular dish tasted slightly sour as if it was off. I didn’t eat that part of the meal.

I tried calling the restaurant three times but they only have a mobile number, no landline and it kept saying busy with beeps- I guess people ordering.

Anyways later on, I got a request/notification on the app to review my food, I gave it 3 stars and the app prompted me to select a few reasons why. I selected rice was cold. I didn’t type anything just clicked it and that was that.

This morning very loud knock on the door, go to the door and a very abrupt man says “is that Starlightrobbery?” And I said yes. And he preceded to tell me that he was the manager of the restaurant and that I’d tried to scam him for a refund. That there was no way that the rice was cold as it’s last bagged and I’m a fraud. That I basically were trying to just get a refund and he was sick of people pulling this sort of scam. I told him I was under no illusion I was even getting a refund and that indeed the rice was cold.

He asked why I didn’t call the restaurant and I said I tried. He then said I should’ve drove down there and I said I couldn’t, because I had small children in bed. He then proceeded again to call me a fraud before saying he was off to two other houses who had request refunds through “Deliveroo”! I didn’t even order from Deliveroo!

I stewed it over and friends I’ve told think it’s quite amusing but I actually think he’s being slightly unreasonable to come to my house and kick off like that. I now feel like leaving a proper review saying this is what he does- but then he might come back. Ugh!

Oh and I did address the sour tasting sauce with him and he said “well that must be your tastebuds”. We sort of ended the discussion with me saying I wouldn’t order from there again and him saying “good”.

and yes, I did tell him he shouldn’t use these food delivery order apps if he has such an issue with them.

You are entitled to leave a review. So long as you are not naming anyone and the review is factual. It’s really awful of the manager to come to your house and intimidate you like that, nasty actually IMO. Don’t order from there again and report this to just eat.

Add what he did to your review! What a horrible man.

You seem to have trouble grasping how insane it is that a retuarant proprietor has gone to a customer's house to intimidate them for a mixed review.

I’d be doing more than ‘reporting’ him to the app. Because I’d have some big questions for the app about how the manager of a restaurant comes to have my name, address, and details of my review such that he can turn up on my doorstep to harass me.

He’s behaved poorly, but their systems seem to have enabled him. The restaurant needed to know what my order was. And they need to be able to see the reviews (anonymously). The delivery driver needed my address (not necessarily even my name actually). The restaurant manager should simply not have been able to turn up on my doorstep.

so I’d have some pretty searching questions about their information security processes. These apps should have much better processes than this. It simply shouldn’t be possible for a restaurant manager to see a negative review and harass the reviewer on their doorstep.

That was harassment.......

You could report it,..... I would find that behaviour very intimidating.

This is not true as a customer. I had to complain multiple times when I ordered a specific meal for DS’s birthday and we got a completely different meal turned up. I got a refund for the completely wrong meal but only as I could demonstrate that the wrong order had arrived, I’d have preferred the correct meal to be delivered. I had a receipt that was attached to one of the bags of food and none of the dishes we ordered were there.

You don’t even get a refund for cold food as I discovered. I’ve only ever complained twice through an app, once when half the order didn’t show up. (I got half a refund but the bits that did show were the cheaper bits so I was out of pocket) and once for stone cold food. For the cold food I just got an email saying sorry it was cold, hopefully will be better next time. I rarely use them now. We have a favoured Indian, Chinese, Pizza, Sushi etc that all allow direct ordering.

I've had completely the wrong meal and declined a refund as the one I had was more expensive!

I'd leave a further review about his behaviour towards me , and also tell Deliveroo customer services. He's a bully, and his behaviour is really not on.

Some very strange responses on this thread.

A few years ago I ordered from a takeaway near me at 7pm and it just didn’t show up. Called multiple times to be told they were busy and it’d get there as soon as it can. After a few hours and further failed attempts at contacting the restaurant, I gave up waiting and went to bed, only to be woken up by the door going at 12.30am which was the food arriving. I wrote a review when prompted the next day stating what had happened and then received an aggressive phone call from the manager who said I got my food in the end so he didn’t understand why I was moaning. He didn’t seem to think it was in the slightest bit unreasonable that it took 5.5 hours

You are paying for a service and it is the restaurants responsibility to ensure food arrives either suitably packaged/on time etc and you are entitled to write a review if they don’t meet this. Not sure why some posters are acting like this is a voluntary thing the restaurants are doing out of the goodness of their hearts ffs.

I'd update the review with the fact he turned up at your house the day after to shout at you (no way in hell would I order from a man might do that to me!).

I'd also contact JustEat and tell them what happened. They need to look at how reviews are shared with owners. This man shouldn't be able to turn up on your doorstep.

Coming to to your house is completely out of order. In fact I'd have been far more bothered about that than the rice

Deliveroo charge businesses for those missing items, and take their fees on top, which is fine if you're a giant corp like MacDonalds, and can afford the losses, but for small businesses, those losses soon add up. I would imagine he's at breaking point, but like I said, it's no justification for his behaviour

Well, obviously not all restaurants are so thorough, especially when they are busy. I've had items missing in about 10% of Deliveroo/UberEats orders - sometimes just irritating - missing curry sauce and mushy peas from chippy, but I'll live, and sometimes, as happened with UberEats/ McDonalds - the entire hot food order, only the drinks and dessrt was delivered, so I had to order it all again.

I certainly made sure I was refunded for that. Just because some customers try it on, it doesn't mean that others shouldn't be believed, and it certainly doesn't mean that someone should be called and abused. Furthermore it was a misuse of someone's personal details to contact her at all.

Sounds like the poor man is having a breakdown and is worried about his finances. I’d send a firm but concerned email outlining what happened, that his behaviour was inappropriate and that your concerned about his mental health.

I'd also write about him on local Facebook pages, warning others about my experience. He'd be fucking toast if he tried that with me.

Mental health my arse, he's just a bully.

Also if someone came to my house when I was on my own I'd report them on 101 when they had gone. The police need a word. You should not feel threatened on your doorstep.

I would report him to ICO, its a breech of GDPR - a very clear one as the data you supplied was used outside the purpose you supplied it for (delivering food).

GDPR was also my first thought! I would also consider the harassment angle.

The business owners using deliveroo’s
services need to take the problems they have in relation to customer refunds up with the company though.

I cannot remember any point in the last year remember receiving an order via Deliveroo where there was not a problem. Unbelievable lengths of time between ordering and delivery (with no communication). Freezing cold food every single time. Incorrect or missing items.

Some of this is probably the restaurants’ fault. Often the packaging used is simply inadequate for the task of keeping the food warm for any kind of delivery. And I assume the missing bits of orders are down to them too.

But some of it is that Deliveroo is shit. Drivers doing multiple deliveries that are most certainly not on the way for the next is clearly something their processes enable. Their own system should make it impossible to say you’ll deliver two orders in completely different directions.

And it should coordinate simultaneous deliveries so that the restaurant prepares the orders to be available at the same time. I know for a fact (because I’ve stood in the chippie and listened to the conversation between the staff and the delivery driver about it) that food for one delivery sits there going cold while the restaurant prepares a different order because the same driver is delivering them both.

Even if this crap is the doing that by working through several apps at once, the fact is the way Deliveroo contracts their drivers means that they can and do this. If their employment model were not so shit and exploitative, the drivers wouldn’t be doing it.

They charge restaurants (and customers because there are processing charges) quite a lot. And still can’t make a profit. Because the company is really, really shit. It’s clearly badly run. Very badly run.

Their customer service is also dreadful. Takes ages to get through and it’s completely unhelpful. There’s no communication when something goes wrong. It’s all pretty terrible.

It annoys me because the effect of Deliveroo and the other apps has been to generally deteriorate the take away experience. Before these apps dominated the landscape, you did generally get hot food in a reasonable time when you ordered takeaway. If anything, it should be much easier to achieve this than it was years ago. But it seems to be literally impossible to get an accurate order of hot food in any reasonable timeframe using these apps.

As is clear, I feel really strongly about this. So crap has my experience been.

Drivers doing more than one delivery at a time is a big part of the issue. I know it’s because they are paid peanuts per delivery, but as a customer paying £4 for delivery I expect it to arrive hot. It’s a stupid system.

I also would be updating my review to say he had turned up and intimidated you.

On that basis alone, I would refuse to order from them. And if he turned up again, it would be a 999 call

Abrupt isn't an ethnicity? Indian restaurant is just a factual statement surely?

Harassment of the worst kind - coming to your door to berate you and call you a liar?

Update your review, and contact the restaurant saying if they ever come to your house again you'll report them for harassment and violation of GDPR