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Reporting a Business to Trading Standards!!
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Anyone ever reported a business to trading standards?
I went out on the weekend to a pub where I'd invited up to 40 people to come join me for drinks and a meal before we went off to another venue.
This was the first time I'd been there so no experience of it - nice place but they kind of ruined parts of the night by totally trying to rip people off.
They have 2 for 1 meal deals advertised all over the place saying available everyday of the week but when you ask them they say not today. We have sports on so we have a reduced menu. Thing is they're a sports pub - so they have sports on every day of the week.
Those of us not drinking and driving ordered a pint of coke and got an entire glass full of ice and I mean right the way to the very top and then coke. We never asked for ice nor were ask if we wanted any. Considering it was about £2 for a pint of coke I think they could have afforded not to try and rip people off by watering it down so much.
And lastly they listed meals without putting the major ingredients (i.e. they had things like Hamburgers for sale but didn't tell you as standard it comes with bacon on top - not great for the the Muslims and Jews in the group or simply people that don't want bacon and never knew it would come with it)
I was so annoyed (not so much for myself but for the people in my group) I emailed the local council's trading standard section and pleased to say they emailed me back to say they'd check it out and pay them a visit.
I went out on the weekend to a pub where I'd invited up to 40 people to come join me for drinks and a meal before we went off to another venue.
This was the first time I'd been there so no experience of it - nice place but they kind of ruined parts of the night by totally trying to rip people off.
They have 2 for 1 meal deals advertised all over the place saying available everyday of the week but when you ask them they say not today. We have sports on so we have a reduced menu. Thing is they're a sports pub - so they have sports on every day of the week.
Those of us not drinking and driving ordered a pint of coke and got an entire glass full of ice and I mean right the way to the very top and then coke. We never asked for ice nor were ask if we wanted any. Considering it was about £2 for a pint of coke I think they could have afforded not to try and rip people off by watering it down so much.
And lastly they listed meals without putting the major ingredients (i.e. they had things like Hamburgers for sale but didn't tell you as standard it comes with bacon on top - not great for the the Muslims and Jews in the group or simply people that don't want bacon and never knew it would come with it)
I was so annoyed (not so much for myself but for the people in my group) I emailed the local council's trading standard section and pleased to say they emailed me back to say they'd check it out and pay them a visit.
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Comments
Also a scary looking bouncer nearby
Also the coke issue was less of an issue when it's first given but it's later on when the ice has melted you really realise how watery it makes your drink. I don't know why Coca Cola themselves don't kick up more of a fuss with the pubs, it's their profits that are being eaten at when consumers buy a coke and get 70% ice and 30% coke.
Also there was lots of new comers in the group and no one wants to start the evening by kicking up a fuss and being tossed out of a pub
Normally I wouldn't reuse a pub if it was like that but it's location is so good, being next door to a tube station and it's very large - the place itself is really nice inside, it's just the penny pinching that ruins it.
It's owned by a Welsh company I believe - don't know if all of this is standard practice in Wales??
After the first drink too much ice then why not ask for no ice? Not exactly a big deal. Or since you do have a bugbear about drinks coming with ice, ask for no ice at all.
You say you didn't ask for ice but surely you must know everywhere adds ice as standard with soft drinks. Not as though it's some strange bizarre incident.
Also why would coca cola care? for the mount of profit they might be losing they'd get bad relations with their buyers, have it spend money to actually check pubs aren't watering stuff down, and pubs could just say "fine we'll switch to pepsi then".
As for the rest, that's fair enough, if they have offers up everywhere then they should serve them.
I understand in some circumstances how this could be a pain though.
That sounds like the kinda crap those that serve such drinks would say .. are you a barman by any chance?
Who said we each ordered more then one soft drink each? There was multiple bars and we didn't all going holding hands to the bar to get our drinks and compare what we got at the time of ordering.
Even if it's standard to put ice in without being asked - a sense of decency should tell most normal people that having more ice then coke is just plain wrong. You'd have to be a serious tight sod to water down a drink by that extent.
I just spoke to a friend who owns a restaurant and mentioned what happened and he said they also put ice in drinks if not asked but 3 cubes and never anymore.
Most people don't mind ordering a drink and having a bit of ice in it (when they've not been asked) - but since there's no legal framework like there is for beer and other alcohol there's always going to be a tight sod who takes advantage. (wouldn't be you by any chance would it?)
Yes I understand - there's a huge difference when you're only concerned for yourself compared to when you have 40 other people to consider at the same time as well as being extremely busy making sure they're other needs are taken care of - simple things like finding them a seat or a space at the table.
Some things are best dealt with on the spot and somethings are best dealt after the fact.
I don't think it particularly applies to trading standards, but if you ever want to raise something with the ombudsman then you have to have raised with the company first.
Certain things like over doing the ice in drinks yes maybe - but all that means is the next 100 people to walk in the door get screwed.
Do you think if you complained about the ice to one barmaid who can barely speak English the company would change their policy as effectively as if the local council paid them a visit?
If I said anything about the false advertising of two for one meal deals do you really think they'd get up on a ladder to remove the sign that had been hand drawn in chalk and written 10 feet off the ground?
If I said why don't you include in your little printed out A4 menu that the burger comes with bacon as standard do you think they'd have nipped into the office and gone and changed it? And reprinted all the menu's?
One set of actions benefits yourself - another approach benefits society as a whole. It's not like it was a tiny pub owned by one person - if it was then I'd have spoken to the pub landlord - but since this was a huge pub, with multiple bars and multiple levels and many staff working there - which I already knew was owned by a much larger group I decided reporting it to trading standards was the best course of action for society as a whole.
Nope, I work in insurance
I was making the presumption that people might have noticed someone else getting a drink with 10 tons of ice with it, and again, is it that hard when they fill a glass right to the top with ice to ask them to pour some of it out? sheesh, chill out a bit *pun not intended*
I remember other threads where ice in drinks was mentioned and you had a bee in your bonnet about it then too. Surely you should have learnt by now to just ask for no ice if it gets you so irate? Save you the chance of a heart attack later too
As i said, fair enough for rest of what you wrote but on this one point you are going OTT again.
umm no its not and common sense should really tell you so....
i don't really see what relevance that has to the complaint, tho if it were me i would have complained while i was there
Anyway my original post wasn't about just 1 thing it was about 3 things - you're the one that took just one aspect and commented on it.
And it all adds up - in other venues that do two for one deal most of us would make use of them - if there's 40 people it means the price of a lot of meals have been saved. I'd say overall - all their penny pinching tactics costed each person an extra £4 to £5 times by 40 people that's upto £200 worth of over charging. And that's just our group what about the individuals over the course of a week? They're easily topping up their taking by thousands of extra pounds per week by their tactics.
But you're in insurance so you probably know all about the best way to scam people out of their hard earned money ..
Good for you - but then again you weren't there so you don't actually know the circumstances and how often do you host 40 people at the same time with a whole bunch of other things going on?
And why is it commonsense? Different cultures can have different expectations and different reputations and different ways of preparing things.
If order a Pineapple drink in the UK .. I get Pineapple juice - when I was abroad in Asia I ordered one and got a glass of water with chunks of pineapple in it. Not what I was expecting but if that's the standard in their culture then fair enough.
I only commented about that one thing as i thought the rest of what you said was fair enough, as i had said in my previous post, presuming of course you had bothered to read what i said before going off on your ice crusade.
As for insurance being a rip off, with the guidelines the FOS has in place, you're pretty much guaranteed to get some sort of payout even if you lie or leave stuff out on your application forms. E.g. you could you be an alcoholic with a side hobby of crack but if you died of lung cancer then we'd still have to pay up.
As for the comment about Wales/welsh companies, i really wish you were joking, it's part of the UK and common sense would say that it's pretty much going to be the same as the UK. And not just a Welsh thing lying to customers and ripping them off :rolleyes:
Anyway I was more of the view that perhaps the staff in London were also taking advantage of the fact the parent company is based in Wales and thus screwing customers to boost profits and ruining their reputation because they don't go out as often to check up on them.
For all I know the manager gets a bonus for achieving good results and perhaps he or she does this by cutting corners and not playing fair with the customers.
You can see from the clientele a lot of the customers may be tourists and I've often seen in London and other big cities there are plenty of businesses willing to give bad service because they know they won't see that person again and there's hundreds more walking in the door after him.
Obviously pubs in small towns with a set number of customers survive on repeat business and so built a good reputation for themselves but in London many places know they have so many people walking in the door they can mistreat people and it won't put a dent in their business.
Exactly my thoughts .. Even when a business is based in a different location if it's from a certain parent country you have a varying level of expectations.
If you travel abroad and hear there's an Irish Pub in the town you have a certain level of expectation.
It's like buying a car - if you buy a car made in the UK then you expect one thing but if it's made in the UK and the parent company is someone like Honda, then you have a different level of expectation because of the good reputation Japan has for cars.
Last thing I want to see is some London venue giving it's Welsh parent company a bad reputation.
That website is useful BUT it's not always the most effective way to report a company.
I reported the pub to both the website you've linked to and the council's Trading Standards office and the council's office was much more responsive and keen to see the reputation of their borough maintained at a high standard...
If you think they are deliberately screwing customers, then by all means report to trading standards, BUT from the point of view of the people you were with at the time, a complaint on the spot would have been far more use.