Complaint Review: Burger King

This is of great urgency. I must share with you of the absolutely horrendous treatment my mother and myself, along with my kids, endured at Burger King Store # 1990, 1003 West Patrick St. Frederick, MD 21702.

We went through the drive thru of said Burger King Thursday evening, January 18, 2007. Automatically, we were told first of all, that there was no beef left at the restaurant, which by the way, should not be allowed to have the name "restaurant," for the following despicable acts of your employees:

The person at the drive thru was answering our questions about a coupon we had. Then a supposed supervisor who refused to give her name, but is African American, also supposedly a minor, barged in and reminded us there was no meat. Then, we decided to use a second coupon. The "supervisor" informed us we'd have to drive back around through the drive thru in order for them to accept 2 coupons, because "there is a sign that very clearly states in the drive thru that we will only accept one coupon per customer per visit." However, the food being bought was for 2 separate familes: my kids and myself, and my mother and father. It was completely ridiculous that we should have to come all the way back around with the same car and same people in the car for them to give us our food. Furthermore, why should we be sent a big BK coupon book with coupons only good for a limited time, and be denied putting them to good use? Also, I forgot to add that we were inconvenienced from the start by them telling us they had no beef which we intended on buying, yet they would not accomodate us when we had to use a second coupon due to their not having what they need to run the business! My mother even offered to ring the food orders separately. Still, they would not comply. Furthermore, without my mother barely saying a word, the "supervisor" said "I am not going to argue with you." No one was arguing, however, she saw fit to have an attitude with us from minute one, from when she said, "the sign clearly states...." She left the window. No one would take our money, give us our food nor come back to the window. Everyone had disappeared. We had to keep beeping the horn when tapping on their window would not work. They still would not come. The "supervisor" came back and we asked her to take our money and please give us our food. She would not do it. We insisted she just let us pay and give us the food so we could leave. Still, she would not do it. When my mother reminded her that she can't just refuse to give us service like that, she said, "we don't have to give service to anybody." More importantly, she said to my mother, "I don't have to do anything for you." She slammed the drive thru window shut after throwing my mother's credit card out the window and it flew right at her!!! Anything could have happened to my mother's card once it got thrown out that window but the supervisor just did not care. Again, no one was at the window, and no one would return. My mother had to yell for someone to get the manager because no one was coming. We tried to explain to him what happened. He didn't want to hear anyone but himself talk. We just asked if he could take our money and give us our order but he didn't. He in fact told us we had to leave the line and pull up closer to the door so he could come out and talk with us, but that is in no way what he did. All the while in the line we had been reminded that there were other people behind us in the line when they would not even take us seriously as a customer. Somehow, everyone else in the line was 100 times more important than we could ever be in their eyes. And we put in our order at the window to begin with because automatically after pulling in behind us, a truck started beeping at us = zero patience. Back to the manager, that I cannot believe is in such a position as well as the supervisor (I don't know how anyone could think it was ever smart to promote such cold, unfriendly, noncustomer service oriented people that I ever encountered), he said he just wanted to know what the problem was yet my mother saw him hiding behind a column in the store and he fully well knew what the problem was--the supervisor refusing us service for no good reason. I find it highly odd and all too conincidental that she seemed to take over the whole operation once we pulled up to the window because she had given my mother trouble before on Christmas Eve of all times. That time she had gone inside the store and the "supervisor" was so concerned with the people behind my mother, she voided out my mother's order and took them instead, with her excuses being, "I do not have to take your order, I do not have to give you service, I can refuse service to anyone I want."

It seems largely that we have been discriminated against for other reasons I do not know beyond our being Caucasian and the supervisor and the manager being African American. The manger proved this to us when he very adamantly and sarcastically said after my mother was telling him about having her daughter in the car as a witness as well as her grandchildren, "Hi I'm C.J. I'm black!" We could have cared less what color anyone was but he proved that obviously for him it was a huge issue and most likely the reason we were treated like absolute scum, while others back in the drive thru line laughed and probably did not have to endure such embarrassment and shame, not to mentioned being treated like absolute filth and scum for no reason but what we look like, because they had nothing else to go on did they?

Another thing that is completely wrong with this is the fact that these two people seem to think it is alright to place themselves above and beyond the needs of the customer. They are running an operation in which the customer is not always right, in fact they are dead wrong to even try to get anything out of them if they don't want you to have it. Perhaps we are not the only ones. Perhaps they weed out people they want their money from and people they don't based on how they look, how rich or poor they are, or just based on the mood they are in that day. These people need to be fired at the very least, though I know it very unfortunately will not stop them from bestowing their oh so great customer service skills upon some other business, it would at least get them out of the Burger King business, that has already caused us to greatly prefer McDonald's, where we went to when BK would not serve us and we were treated fantastically, even being asked if we were sure we had everything we needed!! That Burger King in particular has lost our business and that of everyone we plan on telling and spreading the word to through those people. We will be keeping a close eye on the store however, and if those two are not fired as soon as possible, we will be getting the best lawyer we can find to remedy the situation.

It is purely sickening that these people are in high positions for one thing, but also it is disgusting that they are in food positions which are made to serve people, and not just people you choose but everyone, no matter who they may be or what they look like.

Shauna
Frederick, Maryland
U.S.A.

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