… the FREE pizza
The S.O. and I were feeling lazy one Sunday night so we decided to order delivery pizza. The pizzas were delivered 20 minutes after the promised delivery time, but the delivery guy was apologised for the lateness so we did not pursue the matter.
Paid for pizzas, set the table then sat down and opened the boxes to one right order and one wrong order. Instead a four cheese pizza sans tomato base, what greeted me was salami with mushrooms on a tomato base.
Phone calls to the pizza place went unanswered as they had closed for the night. So I said ’sorry’ to the person who lost his/her salami with mushrooms on a tomato base pizza and pleased my growling stomach.
The S.O. tried calling the pizza place the following afternoon, but they were unavailable. Luckily, the returned the call after hearing the voice message he left. This time, my mother-in-law picked up the telephone and they told her they would give us a complimentary pizza on our next order.
A few days later, the S.O. and I decided on another delivery pizza dinner to claim our complimentary pizza. When the orders arrived, we still had to pay for two pizzas but received three. The third pizza was a dessert pizza, where a chocolate base was sprinkled with colourful chocolate rice.
It would have made sense to charge us for one pizza on an order of two pizzas, instead of giving us three pizzas for the price of two; we were so stuffed from our main order, that we could hardly eat the dessert pizza.
Omly in Italy does the concept of buy-one-get-one-free sound alien.
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… TERRIBLE customer service
We spent Sunday in Venice with three friends from the States who had never been in Italy before.
When on Rialto Bridge, we were captivated by a tiny shop’s display of masks and bottle stoppers topped with colourful glass. Five of us crammed in to the tiny shop space to further find if they had more selections.
After checking with the cashier that a minimum purchase of 20 Euros was required for charging to the card, they decided to combine their purchases and split the bill later.
Our make friend placed his selection of bottle stoppers on the tiny counter space, waiting for the other two girls to complete their selection of handbags and masks. Suddenly, the cashier handed him a receipt.
We all immediately told her that they wanted to put all their purchases together so that they could charge it, but the cashier insisted that she had already rang up the purchase on the register and he had to pay in cash.
It was a strange situation as no cash was given to the cashier, so it was not possible for her to present us with a receipt. Further, they insisted that the transaction on the register could not be cancelled because it had already been recorded.
At this moment, one of two other men who were closing the shop started insulting us using the Venetian dialect, and even threw a piece of paper at one of the two girls.
Everyone quickly came to the decision that if the wanted to be rude and nasty, we were not going to bother. They left everything on the counter and walked out immediately.
Only in Italy can Venetians be so clever in the art of losing customers, especially when their business depends on tourist money.
