A family has hit out at their "heartless" local pub for charging them £200 when they were forced to cancel a meal booking after one of them suffered a serious medical emergency.
Eight members of the Kitching family, including Jamie, 38, and his wife Amy, 33, were due to have lunch at The Black Horse in Little Weighton, Yorkshire, last month on Sunday February 12. But early that morning, Amy received the awful news that one of her close family members, who was due to be at the meal, had been rushed to hospital after collapsing on his kitchen floor.
While Amy rushed to be at his bedside, husband Jamie got in touch with The Black Horse to let the pub know that the family would not be able to make their booking because of the ordeal. But Jamie was shocked to then receive an email back from the venue informing him that the family would be charged £25 per head if they did not turn up for the meal, HullLive reports.
Jamie told HullLive: "My wife and her family rushed to the hospital and received the horrible news that her family member had fractured his skull and had a bleed on the brain. Contacting the restaurant was far from our priority, but I made sure to get in touch early in the morning to give them as much notice as possible that we wouldn't be able to make our 12pm booking.
"I received an email back shortly after telling me that we would be charged £25 a head if we didn't show up, which would come to £200. This was way over what we would have spent had we attended, because the Sunday lunches only cost around £15, plus one drink, bringing it to £18 a head at most.
"While my wife was in the hospital, having just received the horrendous news, she received a notification that £200 had been taken from her account. The Black Horse didn't put the money on hold to give us a chance to find a resolution or reschedule the meal, and added unnecessary stress to our situation."
Micaela Clegg, manager of The Black Horse, confirmed that she had received Jamie's email and was aware that a family member had been taken to hospital, but said she did not know the full "severity of his injuries" at this stage. She explained: "We take credit/debit card details to secure ourselves against late cancellations and the terms of this policy (which are the standard ones offered by the reservations system used by the majority of restaurants) are stated in the confirmation email sent to Amy when she made the booking.
"At this stage food had been prepared and staff were booked to cater for the party," the manager added. The family said that they had not pre-ordered any meals or paid a deposit, and had confirmed the booking the day before the accident.
In an email back to Jamie, Micaela said: "Unfortunately, because we are fully booked today and I have turned away other bookings in favour of yours. The cancellation charge will still apply unless I can resell the table. I will release the table now then if you decide you would still like to come let me know but that would be your best option to avoid charges."
The pub then processed the £200 charge after it was not able to resell the table, and Jamie wrote an email to Micaela objecting to the venue's "disgusting customer service". Jamie said that he reached out to the pub over the course of the next couple of weeks asking for a resolution or compromise, but received no further correspondence from them.
"It felt like a huge kick in the teeth to not even receive a response when we had gone through such a hard time," he said. "We were also capable of sending proof of serious illness if they were adamant they needed it.
"We just felt a sense of anger and helplessness over the situation. I know restaurants are struggling but the customer service was so callous and cold with something so severe - I have never seen anything like it before.
"I was more than happy to compromise on a cancellation fee, even though our absence couldn't be avoided, but £200 was ridiculous. There are businesses desperate for custom and and wouldn't be so heartless, so we would encourage people to go to places like that instead," Jamie added.
Micaela said that while she understood that the situation must have been "highly stressful" for the family, she did not want to be pushed into refunding the £200. She said: "If this were theatre or concert tickets would anyone expect a refund under these circumstances, and should restauranteurs be restricted from running their business as 'businesses' for fear of this sort of reprisal?"
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