Rip Off - eating out with kids (Kids and Restaurants)

Member Name: sugarlump

Product:	Kids and Restaurants
Date:	29/09/01 (369 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none

Disadvantages: everything!

It's bad enough when all you want is some peace and quiet and you find you have to take the kids out with you, without being badly ripped off when you get there.

I'm talking about these fabulous "kids meal deals" or whatever each establishment calls their own specials.

You shell out for the whole deal. You get a meal with drink and additional bits and pieces thrown in for free - only to find you only get a fraction of what you have paid for and a face-full of surly assistants when you try to get your money's worth.

Take MacDonalds. We have a drive through here in Barnsley that is fondly known by other parents as the "drive around". It's next to a roundabout and as soon as you drive out, the kids yell from the back of the car that there is something missing, and you have to drive round and round the roundabout back into the MacD's until they get it right. Missing toys, missing chips, missing ice creams, given burgers with sauce instead of plain burgers; the list goes on.

Next, Brewsters, in the Brewer's Fayre chain. Order a kids meal, with ice cream, pop, main meal. I always pay on the debit card and open an account. Out of four visits, I have never yet received the ice cream or the pop without a fuss. In fact on every occasion, I have been told the pop will come with the meal; the little darlings are dying of dehydration, so they go back to the counter to collect the pop they are owed, you go home and check your receipt and find you have been billed for the pop you paid for already as part of the meal deal. All four times that has happened, and another twice I have found they have slapped the free ice cream onto the bill, leaving me with a bill £3 more than it should have been.

It's the same with an indoor play area here - pay for the kids to have one and a half hours play, and for £1.50 more they get free juice, hot dog or chip butty and a bar of choc of pack of sw
eets. And guess what? I always have to argue at the counter when they try and charge me again for the food and drink and the kids have yet to get their choccie-sweets. It's annoying for me, and upsetting for them not to get what they were expecting.

The government only gives us a measly £11 a week to feed them, so why the heck don't we get what we ask for? It rarely happens with adult meal-deals so why does it happen all the time with kids' meals? I estimate I get overcharged 80% of the time I take my kids out - and at twice a week, I reckon that comes to a good £100+ over the course of the year.

Let's get on our high horses and demand the stuff we've paid for - I do, and I've been threatened with being thrown out and with them calling the police because I have been assertive enough to ask for what I have paid for, as well as being called a liar and a thief. Is it because we are parents they think we must be brain dead and not care about being overcharged? Who knows. All I can say is companies ought to get their acts together. It's tough enough taking children out for a meal, logistically and financially, without the constant hassle and headache that overcharging and incorrect orders can cause.

UPDATE: DATED 1 DECEMBER 2001

Two months have passed since I wrote the above opinion and has anything changed? Not in the slightest. A week ago, we went out to Brewer's Fayre, paid for the kids meal deal, did not receive the pop or ice cream that we paid for with the meal, and after 45 minutes of waiting, I got a bit shirty. Anyway, we got the pop, we got the ice cream. I paid the bill by Switch, and you are asked to sign a receipt stating the total bill, not an itemised one, which I think is a rip off to start with. Anyway, I got home and found we had been billed for the ice creams which we had already paid for as part of the meal deal! Hence, an extra £2 on the bill. Anyway, to make matters w
orse, after the weekend, my bank account seemed a bit low, so I requested a bank statement and guess what? Yep, they had billed me twice for the same meal, an overcharging of around £20 on top of the original mistake. Talk about compounding it!!

I wrote a letter of complaint and was refunded, received an apology promising the staff had been retrained and it would not happened again, and I was offered a tenner off a meal next time I go. Sorry, but tenner or no tenner, I won't be taking my kids to Brewer's Fayre again.

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