My DoorDash.com Delivery Nightmare. #BuyerBeware

Tags

DoorDash.com

As I get older I have found that I’m starting to look for services that make my life easier. Time is the one thing I just don’t seem to have enough of.

As I’ve talked about before, I use grocery services like Walmart grocery where I just place an order online and go pick up my order without even having to get out of my car. I know that sounds lazy and it is. LOL But it also saves me about an hour or so a week. That’s an hour I can never get back. That’s an hour I can spend doing things that matter to me.

Another thing I’ve done recently is check into some food delivery services, especially love having my food delivered right to my door on weekends when I want to do nothing but relax.

The one I’ve been using the most is called Door Dash. Until recently I’ve had no problems with them. But then again, it only takes once before what seems like a dream can become a total nightmare.

It was raining last night and I didn’t feel like getting out to pick up food or even cook anything at home. So instead I placed an order with Sonic and had DoorDash.com deliver it to me.

About half an hour later I got a phone call from the delivery driver. This was the first time that has happened to me. He wasn’t really making a lot of sense and he wasn’t speaking in full and complete sentences. It was mostly just mumblings about the weather, and not sure where I live (as best I could gather).

I explained that I was new to the area so I wasn’t sure what the cross streets near me even were and suggested he instead called door dash support for help. He declined. I asked, don’t they provide you something like Google maps to find your deliveries? No response.

Finally, after about 5 minutes of this, I said that maybe he should just call another dasher and have them deliver my order. “No, I have your food”. Okay, fair enough. After another few minutes of this, I said you know it’s fine. Just go ahead and cancel my order. It’s not worth this much drama and stress just to get a burger from Sonic. I repeated t hat i wanted to just cancel 3 times. He was like “No, no I”m right here.”

In fact, he was right here that last time, as I seen him pull up in front of my house.

I was amused to find he was driving a large truck. By the way he was going on about the rain, I assumed he was in a tiny car that he was worried might float away. This guy’s truck was so big he could probably drive through 2 or 3 feet of water and it not be a problem. So why was he bitching about 2 inches?

As it was raining quite a bit, I suggested he pull into my driveway so he wouldn’t get so wet. He said “oh okay” but decided instead to pull right into my front yard with his big ass truck. No, he didn’t reverse. He left his big ass truck in my front yard, got out, ran up to my door to deliver my food and then went back to his truck.

As you know, when it rains dirt becomes mud. So when you drive through someone’s front yard it kills off the grass and makes large muddy holes in your yard. To repair this is will probably cost me a few hundred dollars. Know what DoorDash did when I reported it?

They sent me a nice email telling me they were sorry for my troubles and give me a whole $5 credit for the hassle. $5. LOL

By now it was 10 pm on a Sunday night, I figured not much else I could do. I couldn’t even go out and take pictures of the damage. I knew I would have to wait until the morning so I went to bed. I woke up with a new message from customer support, informing me not to worry they were fully insured. But to get help I would have to file a claim against my homeowner’s insurance.

Now I’m a renter so I can’t file a claim but even if I was a homeowner I wouldn’t file a claim. No way in heck would I do that. Everyone knows that if you file a claim it makes your premiums skyrocket.

Long story short, my $15 Sonic order just got me about $500 in damage to my lawn. And the budget wasn’t even that good.

I was more than willing to pay over-inflated prices for delivery because I’m lazy and don’t want to go out and pick up my own food. But this was far more than I bargained for.

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Let’s talk about HEB’s SHIPT and why you should avoid them at all costs

Tags

HEB, shipt.com, Walmart Grocery

I’ve long been a fan of the Wal-mart grocery pickup since it first came to my area. But recently I heard about a new service, that makes grocery shopping even easier. Instead of having to get in your car and go all the way to the store to pick up the groceries you were too lazy to shop for, this new service from HEB will deliver them right to your front door. That is my kind of lazy!

Unlike Walmart grocery, HEB’s grocery shopping service charges you a monthly fee, whether you use it or not.

You can pay $99 a year or $8.25 a month.

If I agreed to pay the full year upfront, the $99 fee, they said they would give me a two-week trial and if I wasn’t happy I could cancel anytime. Luckily for me, I selected that option so this whole fiasco didn’t cost me a thing.

Well by not costing me a thing I meant the monthly fees from this service.

I signed up for the service and went right to work at placing my grocery order. I found that most items were slightly more expensive that Walmart grocery. For example, they charge $.29 per banana whereas Walmart charges .$19.

That still wasn’t a big deal for me. After I selected my items I attempted to place my order.  I pressed the GET IT SHIPT! button and nothing appeared to happen, in reality, it did – as it charged my account, only I just didn’t know it. I tried again and it said my card and it said it was declined. I had recently moved so I wondered if it were a problem with my zip code. I tried again and again it said my card was declined. That’s a total of 3 times being declined.

I then changed cards and used another account. Again it appeared to do nothing so I pressed submit again after waiting a fair amount of time. It said I didn’t select a delivery time, so I assumed logically oh that’s why nothing happened the first time. I selected a delivery time, then pressed submit and again it failed.

I won’t continue to bore you with all the details. In all, they ended up charging my accounts a total of 7 times.

Declined usually means they couldn’t charge my account because the bank refused the transaction for a variety of reasons. However, that isn’t apparently what it meant to this computer.

$902.90 later, I still didn’t have any groceries. I freaked. These people just took $902.90 out of my checking accounts (I have two of them), and they still didn’t even complete my order.

When I went to speak to their support, they informed me they can’t refund my money because the charges were declined on my bank’s end and the bank has my money. Yes, I swear that’s word for word what he told me.

I tried to explain that I’m looking at my computer screen and I can see every transaction that they charged me for.

The bank had put a temporary hold on the account thinking it might be fraud but when I said, no I shopped at HEB’s SHIPT today, they cleared the transactions, all 7 of them.

Now I’m sitting here with $902.90 taken out of my checking account and still no groceries.

Who charges someone 7 times for groceries? Well apparently HEB does.

The customer service rep named James then tells me that the reason for the problem is that they are a new company, under 2 years old so the banks are suspicious of them.

I wanted to say dude no, the banks are suspicious of you because you keep banging out your customer’s credit cards.

In the end, after trying to deal with James for almost half an hour I gave up. Instead, I called my bank back and had a long talk with them about what happened. They confirmed the charges did, in fact, go through that the security hold on my card had in fact been lifted when I confirmed the charges were legit but they ended up doing 7 chargebacks for me because the company themselves wouldn’t cooperate.

The good news is, it’s a big deal for a new company with a new merchant account to get a chargeback and they just got 7 of them. Not only are they charged $25 to $35 per transaction that got chargebacked but they also get a big hit on their account and that means that if their percentage of chargebacks goes above 1% or 2% (depending on the bank), they will lose their merchant account altogether, meaning they can’t process credit cards anymore for anyone.

For an online company that depends on the ability to process credit cards to survive, that’s a big deal.

I will eventually get my $900 back from my bank, but it may take up to 72 hours. I only hope that in that time no other charges come through which could cause me to bounce a check.

My conclusion is that HEB sucks and SHIPT.COM sucks even more! Stick with Walmart grocery and save yourself the hassle and the money.

 

 

 

Pizza Hut in Trouble?

Tags

Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut Delivery, Pizza Hut Sucks, Taco Bell Delivery

Anyone who orders pizza delivery on a regular basis probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Pizza Hut is having some financial troubles.

While fast food chains like Taco Bella and KFC are experiencing solid returns, Pizza Hut’s sales have fallen flat and in some cases taken a 10 to 12% nosedive.

PIzza Hut reps blame the lack of market has been slow to recover and that is the problem yet other fast food chains are seeing stronger sales.

Then Pizza Huts said they need to be “more aggressive and innovative”.

Well, I may not be an economist or a big fancy pizza CEO but I can tell you what Pizza Hut might really want to focus on and that’s the problem with customer service and getting orders right in the first place.

Last year I placed an order online from PizzaHut.com. A few hours later my order still had not arrived. When I called in they said they would have the store call me. An hour later my order still had not arrived so when the driver called to tell me she was lost and that was the problem (3 hours later mind you) I said don’t bother. I wanted my order 3 hours ago, I’ve already made myself a sandwich.

The driver cursed me out and then proceeded to call me and harass me five times over the next half hour.

When I finally got ahold of the person’s manager they didn’t apologize. They said that the person in question had worked for them awhile now and they had never had any complaints like that, am I sure it really happened?

Sometime later the driver showed up at my house and threw the food I had ordered at my front door. I didn’t realize this and the next morning I had a horribly smelly mess to clean up.

I waited 3 months – yes you heard me right – THREE MONTHS for the manager to return my call about the incident. After trying to reach the manager for that store about 10 times, over that 3 month period, I finally just gave up.

I didn’t order from Pizza Hut for about 7 months as a result of my experience.

Then I heard about their financial troubles and I decided to give them another try. I placed 5 orders over a period of about 4 weeks, each at different times of the day and on different days of the week.

Each time I ordered exactly the same thing which was 4 pizza rollers, 16 buffalo wings (bone-in) mild with blue cheese dressing and a 2 liter bottle of pepsi.

Order #1 – They delivered about 10 minutes late. Not bad but still it took an hour and 10 minutes from the time I originally placed my order to get it. They didn’t however deliver any sauce for the pizza rollers.

Order #2 – Late again – this time only about 5 minutes and my order was wrong. They gave me BBQ, bone-out wings instead of the traditional mild bone-in that I had ordered.

Order #3 – Late again, this time by about 30 minutes. This time they got my order wrong again. I was given medium or hot (not mild) wings and they forgot my pepsi.

Order #4 – Late again – this time by over 2 hours and a half hours. At about the 2 hour mark I called into the store and they said they already charged my card (over an hour ago) so they would have to credit me, which I said was fine. They then told me the food was already on it’s way so I could just have it free of charge. Nice huh? Well it arrived half an hour or so later, cold and trust me when I say, nothing tastes worse than cold pizza rollers. Oh and that credit? Never happened. I was charged the full amount.

Order #5 – I called in to complain exactly 8 days later about my credit that never happened. To make things easy on them I agreed to just order a duplicate meal from last week and get it for free (minus tip of course). I agree and 30 minutes later (only time they weren’t late), there is a knock on my door. The man gives me the food, forgets the sauce and demands I pay him nearly $18. Which is really odd considering the order should have been 22.46 – the cost of the previous order.

I tried to explain the situation to him but he didn’t seem to speak very good english and eventually he just gave up in frustration and left. And no I didn’t pay the $18 he was demanding I give him for the food. And again that order wasn’t even right. They forgot the sauce!

Another thing about Pizza Hut that really bothers me is that they charge you a surcharge for delivery. At first it was a $1. Then one day I noticed they doubled it to $2 and then $2.50 and now today I see they charge $3 for delivery. No that’s not the tip. You still have to tip your driver.  It’s not for your food or your taxes. It’s an extra fee that tack on because they can.

They have no problem charging me an extra $3 per order for delivery, yet they don’t take ownership of their lateness or incorrect orders. If they can’t get that right, why should I have to pay that $3 for delivery?

In the end they messed up 5 out of 5 times. The orders are always late, they get the items wrong, forget your drinks and sauces.

If Pizza Hut wants to know what the heck is causing them to lose so much money, they might want to consider taking some classes in quality control.

August 7, 2015 Update:

I decided to give them one more try – but this time I thought I would keep it simple. I placed an order for only one thing, 16 pieces of traditional bone-in (mild) buffalo wings. With it I ordered blue-cheese dressing (dipping sauce).

They said my order would arrive in 1 hour and 7 minutes. It arrived a few minutes late. Surprise! But still a few minutes wasn’t bad. The wings arrived with ranch dressing, not blue cheese. LOL

But more than that, I actually started thinking.

They charged me $3 for delivery and then I had to tip $3 (sometimes I tip $4). So I had to pay $6 just for the privilege of getting my order delivered. Is it really worth $6 or $7 extra to have your food delivered, when you aren’t sure they are going to get it right in the first place?

That my friends is a big reason why Pizza Hut is in financial trouble.

For half the price I could just go to Taco Bell and still save myself the $6 to $7 delivery fee on top of the half price I saved on the food. Oh and by the way, I just heard that Taco Bell is starting to deliver!

 

 

Use lemons to refresh your fridge!

Tags

Lemon, Lemon Juice, Refrigerator, Remove Odors

Every since I wrote my first story about things you can do with lemons I have just been fascinated to find all the other neat and fun things that lemons are good for.

Did you know that lemons can help you fresh up your refrigerator? It’s true and it only takes 3 easy steps ….

1. Take a lemon and cut it in half.
2. Squeeze the juice from one half on a small cotton pad or a small sponge. If you use a small sponge, please make sure it’s a new one. Don’t use a used sponge.
3. Now place that in your frig and it will remove stale odors while adding the fresh lemony scent.

Want to get more juice out of your lemon? Before you cut it open, hit the lemon repeatedly against a counter. By smashing the inside structure of the lemon, you make the juice easier to extract once you slice it open.

Lazy Eggs

Tags

Breakfast, Canadian Bacon, Cheddar cheese, Cooking spray, Eggs, Ham, Lazy Eggs

My friend told me about this. They are called Lazy Eggs and they are delicious and even better, they are so super duper easy to make. Oh and by the way, you can change out the ham at the bottom for Canadian bacon and it’s just as fabulous!

• So what you do is get a muffin pan and spray it well with nonstick cooking spray.
• Next place a slice of ham in the bottom of each muffin well.
• Place about a heaping teaspoon of diced tomatoes on top of the ham.
• Sprinkle some shredded cheddar cheese over the tomatoes.
• Break one egg into each spot.
• Sprinkle a tiny bit of salt and pepper on each egg.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until the yolks are as firm and the whites are cooked through.

Strawberry Margarita Jello-Shooters

Tags

jello, Margarita, Strawberry, Strawberry Margarita Jello-Shooters, Tequila

Strawberry Margarita Jello-Shooters are delicious!

Ingredients:

• 24-30 Strawberries
• Margarita Mix
• 1 box Strawberry Jell-O
• 8 ounces tequila
• 6 ounce Cointreau (orange flavored liquor)
• Sea Salt for garnish (or you can use Coarse Kosher Salt)

Directions: First there is the STRAWBERRY PREP:
Cut the bottoms of the strawberry flat to get them to stand upright. When you do so, make sure that you do not cut off so much that there is a hole at the bottom.

Use a huller or apple corer to empty out the strawberry.

Once the strawberries have been emptied, use a towel to pat the outside of the strawberries dry.

Check each strawberry and make sure there is not a hole in the bottom before you start filling.

Now it’s time for the MARGARITA MIX
Boil one cup of hot water in a saucepan, then add in Jell-o powder and whisk until powder is completely dissolved, about 2 minutes. Set aside. Measure out 1/4 cup of cold water and set aside.

Combine tequila and Cointreau, in cocktail shaker filled with ice. Add liquor mixture to cold water and stir to combine. Then add cold liquor mixture to hot Jell-o mixture and stir to combine.

Pour final Jell-o mix into strawberries and chill overnight. Dip your finger in water or use a moistened brush to wet the edge of the strawberries, dip and rotate the strawberries in salt to rim. Garnish with cut lime triangles to finish.

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Avocado and Tomato Salad

Tags

Avocado, Avocado and Tomato Salad, Bacon, Cherry tomato, Cilantro, Lime Juice, Olive Oil, Romaine Lettuce, Salad, Tomato, Vidalia onion

Avocado and Tomato Salad, oh how I love thee, let me count the ways.

• 4 cups avocados, diced small to medium
• 2 cups grape tomatoes or 2 cups cherry tomatoes
• 2 cups cucumbers, peeled and diced medium
• 1 cup red onion, diced small
• 4 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
• 2 teaspoons fresh garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• pinch of sea salt
• fresh black pepper
• Lettuce

Toss all ingredients in a bowl and serve top on a bed of lettuce.

I prefer to cut up romaine lettuce and mix it in with my salad instead of serving it on a bed of normal lettuce. But that’s just my personal preference. I’m partial to romaine that I dash with garlic salt – the kind that is the coarse ground with parsley. It’s absolutely insanely deliciously delightful that way. But that’s just me.

Some people have also suggested adding in some fresh basil, and pineapple. I’m not personally a fan of pineapple but I did decide to mention this since others may enjoy the variation.

One last note of change, while the original recipe calls for a red onion, I really don’t like red onions. So instead when in season I use a vidalia onion. They are so sweet and delicious. Really makes the salad all the better. If I can’t get a vidalia onion, I just leave the onion out all together of the salad.

Grape tomatoes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now here is my variation which I made last night and it was amazing! Okay, not exactly as healthy but still beyond delicious!

• 4 cups avocados, diced small to medium
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes
• 1 cups cucumbers, peeled and diced medium
• 4 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
• 2 teaspoons fresh garlic, minced
• 3 pieces of bacon – crisp
• pinch of sea salt
• fresh black pepper
• Romaine Lettuce
• Italian Dressing

So basically what I did was cut down slightly on the cucumbers, used Italian dressing instead of olive oil, remove the onions, and added in 3 pieces of very crisp bacon. It was so beyond delicious!

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Tags

Cool Whip, Crinkle Cookies, Lemon, Low Fat Cookies

Speaking of lemon goodies how about some Lemon Crinkle Cookies?

That’s nice about these cookies is that they are are super easy to make as they only use four ingredients, and mix up in less than 5 minutes.

By the way these are so easy to make, get your kids to help! They will love being a part of the process.

Even better is that they use no oil or butter. These little delights are simply the lightest, softest, yummiest cookies ever.

The Ingredients

• 1 box lemon cake mix (any kind)
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 cups Cool Whip, thawed (8 ounce container)
• ½ to 1 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350.

In a large bowl, combine cake mix, egg, and Cool Whip. Yes the batter will be sticky, so don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong.

Form the dough into tablespoonfuls and then roll in powdered sugar.

Now Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the edges are golden.

Allow to cool 1 minute on baking sheet; then remove and enjoy.

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Truffles

Tags

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Truffles, Wedding Deserts

I am always looking for some fun new tasty recipe that I can make for my friends.  Today I found a great recipe and I thought I would share it with you. The great thing is about these “Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Truffles” is that they taste so good you could even make them and serve them at a wedding reception! They are delicious!

Prep Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes -Yield: 3-4 dozen

Ingredients

For the Truffle:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup creamy peanutbutter
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 3/4 cup mini Reese’s Pieces

For the Coating:

• 12 oz chocolate candy coating, melted
• 2 oz vanilla bark (candy coating), melted
• 1 Tbsp peanut butter

Instructions

1. In a mixing bowl, beat butter with brown sugar and peanut butter until creamy. Add flour and salt. Fold in the mini Reese’s Pieces.
2. Using a one tablespoon scoop, drop balls onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Freeze for two hours.
3. Using a toothpick, dip each frozen truffle into melted chocolate candy coating. Tap on side of bowl to remove excess chocolate. Repeat until all truffles have been coated. In a small bowl, mix melted vanilla bark with peanut butter. Pour into a small ziploc bag and snip off the corner. Drizzle over the chocolate coated truffles. Allow to set, about 10 minutes. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. ENJOY!

Cinnamon Roll Waffles

Tags

Cinnamon Roll Waffles, Food For Kids, Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Roll Waffles are quit honestly so good they should be illegal!  Here are the three steps of this very simple recipe that is quite honestly pure perfection.

Step 1:  Open a can of Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls.

Step 2:  Put them your waffle maker, just as if you were making waffles.

Step 3:  Take them out and pour on the icing.

A few extra tips from the original person who came up with this dream dish [source] … I would spray your waffle iron with cooking spray and arrange your rolls close to the center.   You DO NOT want them squishing out of the edge.

You need to hold your waffle iron down if it doesn’t have a latch.  I only had to wait the same amount of time that I do when I use the iron to make waffles.  Really.  I was shocked that it worked so quickly.