Don’t be left ‘hangry’ by a food delivery disaster
The news that Deliveroo is floating on the stock market for an astronomical amount of money won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has relied on food delivery services in the last year.
We’ve become increasingly dependent on food delivery firms, yet when things go wrong, you can find yourself ‘hangry’ and out of pocket. And there are moral issues around the gig economy and how delivery drivers are treated too.
Last year, Resolver received 22,521 complaints about food deliveries – with cancelled orders, poor-quality food and hard-tocontact customer services leading the complaints. But what are your rights when things go wrong? Here’s our guide.
THE TROUBLE WITH TAKEAWAYS
A good meal often comes down to the individual taste and preference of each diner. What works for some doesn’t work for others, as any restaurant review will tell you. There’s nothing wrong with preferring a full English or a cordon bleu experience. But most of us have minimum expectations, and we want them to be met.
When it comes to your rights, restaurants, and takeaways fall under the category of servicebased industries, which is a pretty broad definition and covers a diverse range of businesses.
The law that is generally considered to be the one that gives you most rights is the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. The act states that you should expect the ‘services’ to be carried out with reasonable care and skill within a reasonable time and at a reasonable cost. That’s a lot of ‘reasonableness’!
The important thing is, if you feel you’ve not got the service, food, or anything else the restaurant led you to believe you would get, then in theory, you can complain.
For many of the people I speak to, this is where the problems begin. When you’re in a restaurant, you can at least send the food back if there’s a problem. However, with takeaways, you’re often stuck with a rapidly cooling meal.
Most complaints come down to quality, temperature or missing items. So have a think about what it is you’re not happy with and contact the firm.
Delivery websites often pass the buck on to the restaurant, but they should have procedures in place for you to register a complaint and mediate a resolution. Of course, if you don’t want dinner to be ruined, you can cut out the middleman and contact the restaurant direct and complain later.
Take a photo – you can escalate the complaint to head office if it’s a chain. Compare the description on the website to what arrived, too. But be reasonable about what you want to resolve the matter. If you’re after a replacement rather than a refund then make that clear. Most websites give you the option to review the food on their site. Be fair and reasonable though – don’t review in anger.
If the food made you ill, If you have a food poisoning, an allergic reaction or hygiene-related problem, then you can report the matter to the Food Standards Agency – an independent Government department that deals with all things food related. You can complain to them about:
Poor food hygiene
A foreign object in your food (surprisingly common in the complaints we see) Cleanliness of facilities
The FSA will look at the wider issues rather than individual complaints, but they have a number of powers for persistent offenders, as does Trading Standards. You can also get a list of the allergens that restaurants have to tell you about in advance when ordering takeaways on the Food Standards Agency website.
WHEN WE CAN EAT IN…
Of course, soon we’ll be able to order food in beer gardens, then possibly inside too. The same rules apply for restaurants in person, with the only difference being it’s easier to get the matter addressed in person if you aren’t happy with your meal.