Last Sat night one of our delivery bikes was stolen (but thats a whole other story). In the box on the back of the bike was a hot bag.
A couple of hours later we get a call from a guy complaining that we’d left our hot bag on the top of his girlfiends car. My manager explained that a bike had been stolen and that the bag must have been thrown away. The guy didn’t want to leave his details and told us that he’d left the bag on a grassed area in a turning area at the end of this road.
I went up to collect the bag - no one in sight, the bag had just been thrown on the grass. Initially I couldn;t find it and rang my store manager to get the guys details to ring him to see where it was and the manager told me that the guy didn’t want to leave them. I thought it was a little odd.
So yesterday I get an email on the store email from the girlfriend complaining that one of our drivers had left the bag on her ‘pride and joy’ and that she had spoken with the manager and he had promised to send her some free pizza vouchers and that she had given her address. She then went on that she had left the bag by her car (incorrect) seen the driver who ‘obviously knew where he had left his bag’ (incorrect) and where were her vouchers?
We don’t do FREE PIZZA vouchers - if we do need to comp something we add it against the customer record on our POS.
I emailed her back and explained that:
a) The bike had been stolen, not ‘the driver had been careless with our hotbag’
b) the manager only spoke to a guy and not to a lady as she had said
c) that the guy had declined/refused to give an address therefore even if we did offer any ‘free vouchers’, which we didn’t, we didn’t have an address to send them.
Got a reply back today saying: My boyfriend wouldn’t give my address as I have children and didnt want anyone knocking on the door asking for the bag. Your store manager said he would post out some vouchers and took my boyfriends address. If you do recorded phone calls you will know this. We were promised vouchers so I thought we would recieve them but obviously not…
I have got some ‘discount vouchers’ and am considering sending to her inc ase there is some confusion but at the moment her story is just so ‘fluid’ that I just don’t believe her.
IMO as a former insurance adjuster, please report this to your agent…It may not amount to a “hill of beans” but if it ever comes back to bite you, your coverage will be “denied” for “late reporting”…Now many may say this is overkill, however, I have seen many claims come back years later that “crushed” folks after coverage was denied…But the decision is yours to make…We have nothing at risk…
The dectective in me would also urge you to make sure your local police agency knew all this detail as well. Something is a bit off here. I think of myself as a open, loving, generous feller, but vouchers for these folks? Nah.
Reminds me of the time a customer said he got the wrong pizza and wanted us to make another one. Said he did not order anchovies. We have 26 toppings but have never had anchovies When I told him this and suggested he check our menu he hung up. I noted this in the pos. He did try it again a few months later :roll:
I had a similar incident a year ago. Some guy called & said he found one of our ‘toppers’ on the side of the road. Sure enough, the driver couldn’t account for the missing topper. Then the guy calls the next day and says a manager promised goods for him retrieving our topper. After failing the return or answer phone calls from me, I make a report at the local PD. I did have the cell phone the guy called from and his name. The LT then calls the # and the dude hangs up on him!! Our ‘stolen’ topper mysteriously appeared at the store’s doorstep the next morning.
I wouldnt give them anything either. If your policy is to just credit it in the POS, then why on earth would a manager say they were going to mail them a voucher? I would get their address and just pass it along to your local PD.
I usually add a comment to the alert note to a customer if i get something suspicious, in which the employees are expected to find a manager if they ever get an alert pop up on a customer.
As for my past experience, the best scam call i have ever gotten was from a guy that called late at night, said his dad picked his Pepperoni pizza up in the afternoon and took it to him at work. When he got the pizza he found a hair in it and wanted me to replace it, and that if I didnt, he was going to report me to OSHA. (just for clarification, I’m well aware OSHA deals with job safety and not food safety). Here’s where his story really falls apart: That day was a slow day and I didnt have any carryouts anywhere near the time he said his dad picked it up. Also, I never made a plain pepperoni pizza then entire afternoon other than buffet. Looked back through the caller id log that Point of Success keeps and his number was only listed once since I have had caller ID (a little over a year). The number he gave me (a different one than he called from) wasnt even in the log. I declined his request and he informed me he was calling OSHA that night and i simply told him to go for it.
I agree with finling a basic general police incident report. THEN . . . ask the lady to contact the officer (give her the report/incident/case number) to give the details she knows. After she does this, you will gladly offer her some free vouchers for her to pick up. I suspect the jeopardy of filing a false police report will send her on her way.
Since we’re telling stories about scammers, I had someone call the store and convince the order taker that we had made a a mistake on his last order and we had promised his next one would be free. A)I have no way to track something like that without sending out coupons B)I was doing the deliveries on the Monday night he claimed this happened. I was pretty thrilled to see that the employee had not only fallen for the scam, but had delivered the pizza as well, while only charging the delivery fee. :roll:
Then there is they older, dirty guy that came in last night after 9:00 and tried to get us to cash a check for him. The cashier actually came and asked me if I wanted to do it. :shock:
I’ve nothing really to report to the police about her finding the hot bag (and to be honest the police don’t seem to be that bothered about the bike theft either). As far as I’m concerned throwing it in the road for me to ‘collect’ doesn’t warrant anything for free and then making up a story about being offered something for free doesn’t also. She hadn’t given me her address or phone number only emailed me.
I’ve emailed her back for her address and sent her some money off coupons (the same ones I’ve sent to around 20,000 households at the beginning of the year). She’s replied back with an address that ordered a few times well over 12 months ago. If she orders to be honest she’s only getting the same as all these other households.
My impression is that these “victims” probably were involved in some way in your theft. Telling them that you need them to speak with the police about what time they found the bag, where it was, etc. and then you would send them some free food, would probably make them disappear pretty quick.
Honestly, I probably wouldn’t even bother to send the coupons if I were in this situation, but I’m usually kind of a jerk when people do stupid stuff like this.
I would take that hot bag to the local authorities and see if they can get any prints or DNA off it to see who might have touched that bag and maybe lead you to the perp.