It’s okay to accept a refund

It should come as no surprise to anyone reading this that I enjoy eating fried chicken which has a knock-off effect that I tend to order out a takeaway quite a bit (although this year I have cut down on that massively) and about three-quarters of the time it will arrive without any problems but this article isn’t about those times – it’s about the other quarter.

Let me set the scene for you. It is getting late in the evening and you get the taste of curry in your mouth. You quickly click on your favourite takeaway and order yourself a Chicken Korma, some Fried Rice, and garlic bread and you click that magical order button which in just under forty-five minutes will bring you that curry you are dying to eat … and the rice is missing.

Although I don’t order a curry or food like that this has happened a lot when I have ordered something to be missing from the delivery. Sometimes it is that mayo dip, sometimes it is the chips or it is chicken wings that I have been figuratively dying to eat and I won’t even go into how common it has been to have any ordered drinks missing.

I would like to believe I am a reasonable person and that these things do happen but the part that annoys me is the defensiveness about admitting these mistakes. To use a real-life example of mine. I ordered a pizza, wedges, and chicken wings from a place in Stamford and naturally, the chicken wings did not arrive. I rang them up to explain that my chicken wings did not arrive and I want you right now to jump to the comments and guess what the answer they gave back out of these options.

1. “Sorry, sir we will get them sent out right away.”
2. “Our apologies we can either add them to your next order or refund them.”
3. “And? It’s only £3.40” and then hangs up.

If you guessed one then you were wrong. This has never happened to me once when I contacted them for any missing orders. I can understand why as it further costs for them to deliver but ultimately that isn’t my responsibility but for the takeaway to deal with. I hope it isn’t always the delivery driver’s fault as sometimes the order was simply never given to them but sometimes it can be if it was left behind in the car for example – it is still something that is not the end customer’s responsibility to deal with.

If you guessed two then this is something that has happened now and then but only with adding to my next order and not refunding it. While I don’t like this option but I hate it, even more, it seems to be up to me to remember this if I order online they charge for it and if I ring up half of the time am debating it.

If you however guessed three then you are correct. When this exact thing happened this time I was outright told why should I care it was missing – after all, it is a cheap item and then they just said thank you for ringing and hang up. It might be me but it seems so many people will stand up for a place they are employed at and will make it their sole duty to never refund anything and go out of their way to refuse even the most basic of rights – more so when the store policies say otherwise.

It is okay to provide a refund when a store messes up but even better than that – double-check everything before you send out an order if you are the delivery person at least I can kinda understand you ain’t allowed to check the orders but a glance to make sure all the bags you are meant to take are with you.

… I miss KFC and being able to walk in right now.