A man from Blackpool was left "livid" last week (October 1) after he turned up at Chinese takeaway where he'd placed an order only to find it closed. Iain Lucas endured a four-hour wait hoping to spend his Saturday night tucking into a takeaway with his family.
The 35-year-old ordered from his local, May Wah, a takeaway he says he's been to many times before. He used the FoodHub app to order a Munchy Box sharing meal at 8:24pm and received a notification shortly after that his order had been accepted.
The order placed for himself, his wife and his younger brother consisted of salt and pepper chicken, chicken wings, chips, chicken balls, egg fired rice, noodles, vegetarian spring rolls and curry sauce. Some two hours after placing the order at 10.30pm, Iain says there was still no sign of the food or any indication it was arriving.
He was still convinced the order was going to arrive and decided to be patient but then called the takeaway to find out what was happening. He told LancsLive: "My wife phoned up for an update. I thought maybe they're just busy or behind schedule.
"They asked for our postcode and address and said it would be about half an hour away. 45 minutes went by and still there was nothing, so we phone up again for an update. We gave the address again and they said it'll be about 10 minutes and put some free soup with it."
After another 45 minutes, the trio still hadn't heard a knock on the door. Iain says at this point, around midnight, he drove to the takeaway instead - where he found it closed.
"I was fuming," Iain said. "I was livid. his was all a massive inconvenience." He ended up having to order food form somewhere else meaning he "paid twice in one night" for dinner.
"I'm quite a patient person but my wife, she was in fits. I kept saying to be patient, it'll arrive, it'll arrive so I feel a bit silly saying that now. The whole time we were being really polite because when you're speaking to them, being irate isn't going to get you anywhere."
After a couple of days, the takeaway called to apologise for the mishap and was told by staff that no order was sent to them by Foodhub which is why his order never arrived the entire night. Despite being offered a refund and the option to claim back a free meal, Iain says he was still left confused due to the multiple occasions the takeaway confirmed his order during the evening.
He was contacted by Foodhub who arranged a refund. He asked them if takeaways have to manually accept orders or if the notification customers receive is just automatic. He says he was told that businesses have to manually accept every order that is placed.
He added: "If they didn't get it, fair enough, technology, stuff happens. But it's just that nag in the back of my mind that's like why did they confirm that it's on its way?"
LancsLive contacted Foodhub and May Wah for comment but they did not respond prior to deadline.
