The Raven Report

My wife and a couple friends frequent a local Burger King 2-3 times a month, and let the kids play in the play area.  On one such trip back in October my wife was overcharged $10 so instead of a $15 charge she was charged $25. Being an accountant the wife noticed the discrepancy fairly quickly. She also alerted her friends that were with her on that day of the issue, one of them was also charged $5 extra.

So the wife called Burger King and explained the issue. Seeing that her friend got his $5 back she didn’t think it would be an issue, but since she didn’t have her original receipt, store management was less than helpful.

If the customer says you charged them too much, and you know that another customer on the same day was over charged, then it would be advantageous to the business to err on the customer’s side and at least do a little investigation.  Neither of which were done in this case.

Now had this been me,, I would have broke the picket signs and besieged the Burger King. But due to the fact the Burger King in question is the only one with a play area and centrally located for the group, my wife decided to continue to frequent the establishment with the change of only paying with cash.

The cash basis Burger King went on for 2 months without a hitch, but then the mistake was made to use the debt card again toward the end of December. Low and behold an extra $10 was once again tacked on to the bill. Once again store management was unresponsive and it took days  even answer the phone.  Corporate was contacted and the number of the Owner was obtained.

After discussing the issue with the owner, records were faxed over. A couple days later security contacted my wife and explained that they would be investigating the issue.   Now fast forward a  couple weeks,  the security guy calls my wife and explains that they were able to isolate the employee and that employee was fired after admitting to overcharging unknown numbers customers over a 4 month period. They are also looking to press charges against the ex-employee.

Now Burger King still hasn’t refunded our $20 or provided any concessions even after it was found to be fraud on their part.  Which leads me back to question why wouldn’t management, owner, security or anybody refund the overcharge as soon as it looks plausible that the customer has a valid complaint?  Heck, they even asked my wife to be come down to the court house and file charges against the employee, which we promptly declined.  Come on we have already wasted much more than the $20 in the time it took to even contact them. Had this issue been taken care of and investigated in October countless customer would not had their hard earned money stolen from them when all they wanted was a Whopper!

The sad part here is this employee was overcharging 100s of customers over a 4 month period and no one caught on.  I know we couldn’t have been the only ones who noticed the incorrect charges, and attempted to contact management. How many customers just gave up? I mean what truly is $5-$10. Heck, the first time we ended up letting it slide after not getting anywhere with management.

Moral of the story: If someone contacts you and says they have a problem they probably do, or they wouldn’t waste their time. So take each inquiry seriously, and don’t ignore your customers or you soon will have no customers to ignore.  

Cody Posey to sale-767560960

Hi,

I wanna buy your item for my lover,reply if it's still available.

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Noah to Cody

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Cody Posey to me

Thanks for getting back to me, I am buying your item for my Interracial beloved lover, am  sending this item as a gift of love from me. Please consider your item sold and remove the add from site. because i will like to make a prompt payment for your item. I am located in Denver. will be adding an additional dollars doing payment for the shipping cost. Send me what i will use for the payment. Do you prefer pay pal or Money order? Send me your full name and address if you prefer money order for the payment to be made asap.

Thanks for your time

Good luck

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Noah to Cody  

I am intrigued by the prospect of your interracial beloved lover receiving and cherishing my item. I hope that they will love and hold my item as much as I have over these past years, and If you could send a picture of your lover,  I would even bless my item to their image. But I fear your lover will never have the enjoyment I had with the item, as I do not participate in modern currencies and will only except payment for my item in gold. 

On a crazy whim, last Friday I jokingly stop by my friendly neighborhood Ford dealer. I ended up test driving a Ford Edge, actually 2, even brought them both by the house for the wife to see, but since Ford didn't have any good deals on the Edges we passed. Fast forward about a week, and we now have a new Mercury Mountaineer.

My Lessons learned:

•      Don't drive from out of state to pick up a car unless you have a firm deposit

•      Don't go looking if you don't intend to buy, at least for me Mr. compulsive obsessive

•      You can get anything from a dealer, even a big display bow if you promise to rate them excellent on a survey.

•      Names of Dealers change, but they stay the same.

Words of Wisdom for ones who wish to sell me a car:

•      I'm buying an expensive item. I want to drive it on the real road and get the warm fuzzes. The parking lot just does not work.

•      If you say your going to hold a car for someone. Do it, and set a time limit up front.

•      Tell me you strive for excellence and make sure I'm completely satisfied. Don't tell me how to fill out a satisfaction survey, and have me  practice on one for you.

How the lessons were learned:

If you couldn't tell by all the commercials, automobile manufactures & dealers really what to clear out last year's inventory before the new year, so incentives are plentifully. After looking into the Edge, where even the 2007 don't have a good deal I spent the weekend (did I mention I'm compulsive obsessive? ) browsing the net for 07 Explorers, and coming up pretty much empty handed. We decided to skip the new car for now . Then yesterday I happened across a Mountaineer with all the options the wife wanted, and sent the link over her way.  

This car was exactly what the wife wanted, so I gave them a call around closing and Bob the salesman side he'd look into it and give me a call in the morning. So early this afternoon I get a call, and Bob states that the car already in process, and he'll let me know if it falls through. The wife calls and i let her know the news. I also send her a couple links to some used 2006s, and we decide go check them out. Since the original dealer is on the way to the other dealer,  wife wants to stop by Bob's place, and look at the other two 2007s they had sitting around that were not quite the "the one".

So we get to Bob's place, and ask to drive one of the other Mountaineer. Bob pulls the car up and says we can drive it around the lot since it is almost out of gas, and he would have to send a porter to go get gas. What are you kidding me? I can't take the car off the lot? Figuring Bob had slipped on ice and bumped his head while retrieving the car in question, I played along. After the parking lot cruse, we come back in and meet up with Bob. He states "Those drive nice huh?". Poor Bob he must of really hit his head good.... I chuckle, and ask about how the deal was going on "the one". Bob says it's still pending, so here I figured we would part ways. I told Bob that we were heading to the other dealer to look at the used ones then all the sudden he wants to check on the status of the one.

Bob comes back with the paperwork for the one, and this time we actually get to drive it, what a concept. We get back, I tell Bob that we'll take it, and introduce concept of trading in the 2004 Trailblazer. Bob comes back with an off the wall low ball offer. I guess Bob did hit his head. I pass on the trade in offer, and move to writing up everything. Bob now mentions that we don't need the guy from Illinois paperwork in passing, and I think nothing of it.
At this point, while the paperwork is being written up the wife and I step out for a smoke. This is when first notice the guy who pulls up with an Illinois plate. Oh yeah I'm in Michigan,and the dealer is here also. More on this in a minute.

So we do the signing thing and are wrapping up.  I have been hinting to Bob that I want a bow for the wife all night, but the option has been shutdown. In walks the satisfaction survey. Now don't get me wrong, for us the experience was very good, but these guys want everything to be exceptional, and prep me on how to fill out the survey when it arrives and even have me fill, and sign a mock survey. Here where I realize the deal is not over and bring up the bow. Bob becomes flustered at this point. I casually state that I have a short memory, and a bow would remind me of the exceptional service I received otherwise I might forget and circle a very good. Needless to say I now have a big red bow that I can use as marketing material for this Trailblazer I still have.

We wrap everything up and, as we're moving the car seats into the new car, I notice the couple staring at us through the window. We set to depart and the couple gets in there Illinois plated car, just giving us a passing glare as they go. This is where it hits home. Now don't get me wrong the wife loves the new car, and we wouldn't have bought the other one, but that couple drove over 3 hours to get this car and had it bought for underneath them. Now in their situation I would have been on fire. It actually left a very bad taste in my mouth, and even though we had an fairly good buying experience. I don't think  we would ever purchase another vehicle from them.