I was at Burger King a couple of days ago, and the amount I was being charged was more than the posted price. I asked the cashier about it, and she didn’t seem concerned. I asked her to look at the posted price, and she wouldn’t. She said that what the cash register rang up was what it would cost. When I told her it was wrong, she called a man over and he also said it didn’t matter what was posted. The cashier then told me that the man was the manager, and he could charge what he wanted. When I asked about an email address to write a complaint, he gave me the BK address and then said that all complaints come back to him so it didn’t matter if I complained or not.
Today, I went out to dinner. The salad bar price was $6.25. When I ordered it, the waitress said it would be $8.25. I asked if the menu price was wrong. She shrugged. I asked if the menu price was perhaps the lunch price. She shrugged. Other people around us with other servers were ordering the salad bar and their servers didn’t mention a price change at all.
My daughter is amazed that I will question the servers about such small amounts.
Whenever I have pointed out in the past that the posted price of anything was less than what was charged, the staff has always charged me the posted price. That’s pretty much customary.
You mentioned that this was a sit down restaurant. Since the price was on the menu I can’t see why the waitress would just happen to verbally tell you the price while you were ordering. Unless you asked her what the price was going to be, that is.
Now someone doing that, I would personally find very strange. Especially in a place where a plate of lettuce cost 8 bucks. Perhaps it was the recent BK experience that caused you to ask? Or do you normally quiz waitresses about prices even though they are printed on the menu?
That’s very strange. I think you have a strong case for being able to purchase items for the price that’s on the menu, regardless of what their register says. If the staff and manager don’t agree then I’d take my business elsewhere.
On a slight tangent, what annoys me is $2.50 iced teas, and they don’t even print the price on the menu. Like Chilis a few years ago, but I think they changed it since.
Manager, yes, but unless this BK was outfitted with extremely nonstandard POS terminals, the cashier is physically prevented by the software from ringing the food up at anything other than the price set on the computer. It’s possible that the OP ordered a combo and the cashier rang it up as a sandwich, drink and fries, all separate but if that were the case I’d expect someone to notice.
It’s also possible that they were just messing with the OP to scam him (and a few others) out of $2. By the end of the day, they might end up with twenty or thirty dollars in their pocket. Personally, I’d write or call corporate if they didn’t charge the lesser price and let them know that their registers are charging the wrong price and the employees and managers are refusing to charge the prices stated on the menu. I’d bet if you went back in a few days later, you wouldn’t have a problem. Either because they got in trouble for doing it or because the menu board now had the correct price on it.
As for the sit down restaurant, if the waitress told you a different price without you asking it, it’s possible one of the ingredients jumped in price and they had to make a change. IMO, that’s fair game. They still have to make a profit and they still have to make a margin (And the OP didn’t say what kind of salad it was, make it had chicken in it and the cost on chicken strips went from $3.75/lb to $5.00/lb for some reason or the drought we just had effected the price of something or other etc…)
That’s why I said manager, yes. If the manager isn’t willing to handle it, then something’s going on. But the cashier on their own has no say in the total unless they’ve miskeyed something. Asking the cashier to look at the posted price is an exercise in futility because the cashier can’t do anything about that. It’s also possible that the OP caught them at a time when someone changed the price in the computer and they hadn’t changed the sign yet or someone miscalculated the sticker price which is poor planning on the part of the store, but that’s what happens when you use humans and not robots.
About the BK manager saying the complaints would come back to him, I suppose they would. But I’d go to the main BK website, hit “Contact” and fill out the form. http://www.bk.com/
I’ve gone to the websites of fast food places before, both to register complaints and to make compliments. As long as you make sure you aren’ t at the local restaurant’s site(if they do have one of their own) you can be sure that higher ups will see your commentary. It’s not just automatically shunted to the local site. At least not the times I’ve done it.
The second anyone tells you that they’re going to be charging you something higher than the price on the menu, you should walk out. Then write a letter of complaint to the restaurant, the company that franchises it, the Better Business Bureau, the local police if that’s a violation of the law, the restaurant critic at the local newspaper, and anyone else that you think might be interested. Never go back there. Tell all your friends to not go there. Describe the problem on some online websites that collect reviews of restaurants.
Any rational POS system allows for manual entry of a price, or manual override of a pre-programmed price. Typically, of course, the cashier must call a floor manager to do this, as it requires the manger to stick a physical key in, or enter a password. A more senior “trusted” cashier might be given a key or password to allow this too, in some stores.
I would have been fine with that. Thats also why i asked her if the price in the menu might have been the lunch price because i know dinner prices are sometimes more. It was the shrugging and not answering my questions that was annoying.
I left Burger King and complained online to the corporate site, not the site the manager gave me.
I was at the other restaurant with my daughter and one of her friends, and I was not the driver, so I stayed. They’re in their late twenties and early thirties, and were rather surprised that I was annoyed over $2. That’s what made me wonder if I am just getting old and crotchety