WTF Pizza Hut????

Has anyone tried ordering from Pizza Hut lately?

I just wanted to find out if I could pay with my visa, figured I’d give the local Pizza Hut a call and find out. Turns out you can’t actually call a Pizza Hut. You have to call a call center in some other city, tell the recording all of your information, and after you type in your phone number, you have to tell it all again to the actual person who eventually answers the call.

So eventually I get a person who answers with “can I have your phone number and postal code” to which I reply “I don’t want to order a pizza, I just want to know if I can pay with my visa”

The little gem on the other end says “Well how do I know if I don’t know where you live?”

So I beat her (up in my head) and then I gave her my address and she says “yes you can but you have to be there in person”

I ask “do you mean I have to pick it up or will they still deliver it?”

“the card holder has to be there in person to sign”

“Ok, I get that, but does that mean I have to be at the restaurant to sign or can I pay with the visa and still have it delivered?”

“as long as the card holder is there to sign it”

Me: “this is all a bit much isn’t it? just to order a pizza?”

click

Me: What the? She just hung up on me :mad:

See you in hell, Pizza Hut!

Pizza Hut went to crap years ago. They’re the worst pizza chain in my area.

Twenty years ago, I ate at the Pizza Hut buffet for lunch two to three times a week. It used to be a great place.

This is why I went into the nearest take-out/delivery Pizza Hut storefront and got their number.

I ended up doing it when I got a wrong order once and the second time they sent it to the wrong store (wasn’t there when I went to pick up so they made it for me… got a call later asking me when I was coming to pick up from a totally different store…).

They’re crazy.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that different stores may differ in the cards they accept. This suspicion was buttressed when I went to their website and went through the online ordering process where it said, “This store accepts:” and then a list of the things they accept, implying that other stores may accept other things or not accept something on the list. Personally, I’ve never had a problem with paying by visa unless it was some jank-ass shop that didn’t take cards at all. Have you often run into problems with people accepting visa?

You can order online (the easiest way) or by phone with a visa. When the delivery person gets there you (the person whose name is on the card) will need to sign the receipt. You may or may not be asked to present the card.

Not that I order from Pizza Hut much anymore since the kids got old enough to know better.

I called Domino’s. Deep dish pizza, diet coke and roasted garlic dipping sauce will be in my tummy in half an hour.

Inner Stickler, one time I took a cab, handed the driver my visa once we reached the destination and was told he didn’t take visa. So I had to get him to drive to the nearest ATM to get cash. Since then I’ve always checked to make sure.

I figured it’d be like it was when I called Domino’s just now. “Hello, Domino’s” “Hi, can I pay with my visa if I get a pizza delivered?” “yep!” “great thanks!”.

I saw some bit on TV where McDonalds now has centralized drive-thru order takers. When you order at the speaker, the employee on the other end is in a room thousands of miles away, taking similar orders from drive thru speakers around the country. They transmit the order via the Information Superhighway to the ordering location.

Does Pizza Hut have franchised locations? That could explain the variation between stores regarding the credit cards. That being said I don’t understand why anyone would actually eat at Pizza Hut if they had any other choices. I can understand eating at the one in the service station plaza on the highway during a road trip. I shudder to think how bad your local pizzerias must be for Pizza Hut to look like a good option. :eek:

It felt like the kind of rigmarole you have to go through when you want to deal with your cable/phone/electricity company.

Doing all that just to order a pizza is a bit much.

(While I was typing this, the pizza came!)

Now that’s service. :slight_smile:

Yeah, I don’t bother ordering over the phone, I just do it online if I can and if they won’t take visa it won’t be an option to pay with. If you order over the phone, you’ll have to give them your number which will start with a 4 so they’d know then to tell you to get a different card.

A year or so ago, I went in to the local Pizza Hut with a gift card, figured I may as well spend it even if I don’t particularly like Pizza Hut. Gal at the counter wanted my phone number. I declined to provide it. She then tells me she cannot move beyond the “enter phone number” screen on the fancy ass cash register wanna-be without entering a phone number. Stupidest idea I’ve seen in marketing yet. I’ll never go to that location, or any other Pizza Hut again. Fortunately, there’s a Little Ceasar’s about a block down the street from Pizza Hut, and they offer a large pepperoni pie for $6, hot and ready any time they’re open. Not a great pizza, but cheap and edible with no hassle, so they get all my business now.

867-5309

It’d be fun to see if it would take 555-5555, too.

It must have went to hell faster around here (Vancouver, B.C.) than it did wherever you are. I remember enjoying Pizza Hut when I was a kid, but twenty years ago Pizza Hut had already changed over to repulsive plastic cheese and came with “dipping sauce” which listed amongst its other ingredients (I swear to God) “artificial margarine flavour.”

I wouldn’t know about any oddities with the ordering process, because they’ve been on my personal “do not call” list for decades now. (Though they were well behind the curve on the call center thing, as I recall.)

Wow, it does have that, doesn’t it? Thanks for pinpointing for me what makes it so tasty! I’m not even kidding, I didn’t realize until now that that was what gave it that great taste. The rest of their stuff is pretty crappy though. Papa John’s should buy out Pizza Hut and Cici’s for their dipping sauce and breadsticks and ditch the rest.

When i was a kid, Pizza Hut was OK. BTW, at the time, the locations were actual sit-down restaurants (like this photo on Wikipedia). You were served by an actual waiter or waitress and you could spend an hour or so there. Now, their locations are mostly storefronts from which they dispatch delivery drivers (and have perhaps one or two small tables if you want to eat there). A few months ago, I remembered how I liked the Super Supreme pizza so I ordered one for lunch. It was OK fresh and hot, but the leftover pizza tasted terrible. Part of the problem is that the dough layer is just too thick.

I was just thinking yesterday about the fact that I haven’t ordered a pizza over the phone in 10 years! Get with the times- ordering online is so much better, faster, and less crazy-making.

Delivery is not an option where I live. Pick-up, frozen, or something else for supper.

I’ll be the first to agree that I hate automated phone menus. AT&T is the worst… you have to say the prompts. I got to the point of yelling “Irate Customer” and it would respond calmly with “Ok, did you say Great Service?”

Anyway, as mentioned up thread, even drive through windows farm out the orders to a “call” center. Why wouldn’t Pizza Hut do the same? The stores have different policies on what they accept, where they will deliver, etc. depending on where you live. The poor schmuck that got your call couldn’t answer your question without the info needed. They also took a bit of a risk because they likely get paid on a combination of service time and “monitoring” scores. Monitoring is a bit subjective with a supervisor listening to random calls and rating the service level given. Service time is purely based on call length/sales per call. This person probably decided since they felt they had already answered your question (to their satisfaction, not yours) that they would risk that it wasn’t being monitored and hang up instead of driving up a long call with no sale.

Not a perfect world, but apparently it is cost effective. Those of us who give up and go with the flow get our pizza faster that way. Or, as others have said… order on-line.

The local Pizza Hut won’t serve me because I wouldn’t give them my name or phone number when I ordered a take-out pizza at their counter on several occasions. Now the manager sees me coming and refuses to talk to me or take an order. Complaints to the head office fall on deaf ears because you can’t contact the head office except thru an automated service, which won’t return my call.

Too bad. I sure buy a lot of pizzas down the street where they are cheaper and better. What’s the matter with this outfit?

When I’ve ordered from Pizza Hut online, I’ve never had a problem paying with my Visa card. I indicate when I order that I’ll be using a debit card. The delivery person then makes an impression of my card, gives me a slip to sign, I add in a tip, and I’m enjoying my pizza. And yes, I do like their pizza and take advantage of their promotions from time to time.