Short version:
They lost the order for my daughter's birthday cake, and on the second trip to the store, gave me an inferior cake with no writing.
The detailed version:
My kid really doesn't ask for much, so I was happy to order an ice cream cake for her birthday. On Thursday, I went to the Cold Stone website to find out about the procedure for ordering a cake. No problem, we pick out the right cake, flavoring and icing color, and I also add that I would like the cake to have "Happy Birthday" on it. I received an email later that day from Cold Stone confirming my order, and a second email saying that the San Rafael store had received and confirmed the order. Great, all I have to do is go in Sunday and pick it up!
Husband goes in Sunday about an hour after the appointed time. They have "no record" of our making the order, they have three other cakes to go out and ours is not one of them, sorry. Worried that I might have messed up the order somehow, we go home so I can print out the confirmation email. Nope, it very clearly says that the store confirmed the order and gives the correct pickup time.
I call the store and immediately get sent to voice mail. I leave a polite (if terse) message explaining the problem and then drive down. I later find out that while I am en route, the manager called back and apologized and said they "never saw the order" and he doesn't know what happened.
When I get there with my printed confirmation, the women behind the counter immediately say "Oh, is this about the cake order we had the problem with?" They are very polite and apologetic, but can't do anything other than to tell me they are authorized to "comp" me any large cake they have in the store freezer. HELLO, YOU ARE NOT 'COMPING' ANYTHING, I HAVE ALREADY PAID FOR THIS CAKE, WHAT YOU ARE ACTUALLY DOING IS GIVING ME LESS THAN I PAID FOR.
(I did not, of course, actually say this to the counter people, who probably had no idea this was going on and are just trying to get through theirshift.)
No offer of a refund or anything else to make up for the error, no manager in sight, and by the way, they couldn't even put "Happy Birthday" on the new cake because "the person who does the writing" isn't on shift. Gee, thanks.
It's one thing to make an error, it is a whole nother ball of wax to keep a customer's money in exchange for less than they paid for and expect "gee, we don't know how we screwed up, sorry about that" to excuse it. Especially given that this was very clearly a cake for an important occasion.
There are lots of other places to get ice cream. This one is permanently off my list. read more