A fuming mum has hit out at McDonald's and Just Eat for ruining her birthday daughters birthday after they failed to deliver nearly £50 worth of food.
Mamara Beardmore's daughter Ebony-Grace Lawrence was left in floods of tears after the £44.77 order of chicken McNuggets, double quarter pounders and a Big Mac failed to arrive.
The Stafford family made the large order at the restaurant through Just Eat to celebrate the young girl's third birthday.
After placing the order and waiting for more than an hour, Mamara checked the Just Eat app to be told the order had been delivered to her home.
She went outside to look for the food while the children eagerly waited inside, but couldn't find anything, StokeOnTrent Live reports.
The angered mum says she rang the restaurant and was told to go to the nearby Golden Arches branch to collect her order.
But Mamara, not being able to drive or book a taxi, sent her dad down to the store to pick up the food for the children's party.
But things weren't as easy as that and she was left annoyed again after her dad was told he needed to pay for the whole order - again.
Mamara, 32, said: “I told them that I had paid for my meals and had not got them.
"I had kids waiting for food and explained it was my little girl’s birthday.
“They said that if I came down and collected the order we could get the meals.
"My dad said he would get them so I rang the restaurant to let them know that I had sent somebody to get it.
“But they turned around and said we had to pay for a new order and then they would throw in some extras too.
"I said I was already out of pocket because I’d had no meal and they’d had my money.
“I had hungry kids and my daughter telling me that her birthday was ruined and then they were telling me that I needed to pay again otherwise I wasn't getting it. I was so fuming.”
After being left hungry Mamara cut the party short and sent home her guests without a meal before forking out another £40 on a takeaway for her own children.
After putting in a complaint with McDonald's head office she was sent two vouchers.
Mamara has also filed a complaint with Just Eat for the inconvenience.
She added: “Money is tight anyway so there is no way I was paying another £47.77 for new meals.
"This delivery woman has picked the order up, stated she has delivered it, but it hasn’t come.
“I was angry, frustrated and upset. It’s what my daughter had asked for, it was her birthday and I did it for her.
"I had her crying because she kept telling me she wanted McDonald's. It took 40 minutes to calm her.
“The other kids went home hungry and it was uncomfortable explaining that to their parents. I think McDonald’s handled it appallingly.
"As a single parent and with the cost of living going up, it wasn’t money I could throw away like that.”
A Just Eat has apologised for the inconvenience, saying: "At Just Eat, we always want our customers to have a positive experience when ordering their food online.
“Whenever a customer is dissatisfied with their order, we will always take steps to address this. We are sorry to hear that in this case the customer's experience fell below the high standards we hope to deliver.
“We can confirm that we have already processed a refund for the customer, and we are investigating what happened with this order."
A McDonald’s spokesperson added: "At McDonald's we set ourselves high standards and we are sorry that, on this occasion, they were not met.
"As soon as the customer brought this to our attention we apologised and explained that the customer should contact Just Eat to help find a resolution.
“Our customer services team has offered the customer £20 in vouchers as a gesture of goodwill which has been accepted and we understand Just Eat has refunded the full cost of the meal.”
