Wood Fired Pizzas

“5 bucks, I want 5 bucks!”

On another note related to the usage of the Internet at work (as stated by *hingo*):

Has anybody ever noticed how desks/workstations are position within an office. They are NEVER facing the corridors where people can walk. Thus reducing ones ability to spot the approaching boss or fellow staff member whilst you are surfing NON-WORK-RELATED-WEBSITES …

dalryk,

If you take a look at my first reply, I stated that the restaurant should have charged the price they advertised. However, for the sake of $5, why would you bother worrying about it? Its not worth the time, stress and effort. Don’t give me the “its just the $5” bullshit because thats all it is. I’ve been ripped off by several stores before (including the one I mentioned in an earlier post) but I haven’t come on here or called up radio stations to complain – for a lot more than $5 as well.

If it pisses you off so much then I suggest you get some counselling because its really not a big deal. I probably earned over 20 times that amount reading this website at work today (and yes my job allows me to do so).

Oh he’s got one alright Pandy – It’s one where the world revolves around him a great constellation, where hissy-fits are legitimate concerns, where being duded five bucks on some pizzas is worth a tantrum, where people that don’t coming rushing forth with gushing support to reassure you that you and your five bucks are so important and that the dodgy business practices of some restaurant are tantamount to a major subversion of civil liberties.

The main reason health authorities and sociologists frown on breastfeeding until the early teens is because of the danger that it we’ll end up with more guys like this.

Willy Roger phoned a radio station to complain?

My God the man needs a life.

Australia Pizza Kitchen sucks (which is unfortunate, because they *used* to be good. Woden store in particular has the shittiest service of any establishment in Canberra.)

I too would be pretty pissed off if I’d phoned a place to order something and been told the price over the phone but then had another (higher) price demanded once I arrived to pick up the order.

That being said, if the price difference was only a matter of a few dollars I’d just pay up as overwise you’ve just wasted your time driving around to pick it up. I’d probably be cranky enough to ask to see the manager though!

And really, how acceptable is the excuse “oh, those prices are out of date – we’re currently in the process of updating our website”? Last time I looked, it only takes a few minutes to update a website!!!!!!

Next time, offer the $42 and when they complain tell them thats all you have on you since that’s what their site said, they’ll sell you the pizza’s if they don’t think you can possibly pay the $47..

If it really means that much, don’t go back. All this over 5 bucks!

To all the needlessly insulting people here – the issue is not about $5. Will doesn’t care about $5, he cares about the store advertising one price, then charging another, and not really seeming to care that their website was wrong.

Saying ‘it’s only 5 bucks stop being a tightass’ is to miss the point entirely. The point is that as a retailer, you need to at least try and make sure the prices you advertise are correct. And if someone points out that your prices are incorrect, you need to make an effort to fix it.

Berating someone for complaining when they’ve lost out because they relied on someone else’s error is grossly unfair. No matter if it was 50c or $50mil, the mistake was made by the seller. You knobs paying out on Will for complaining should try some of this snake oil I have for sale, it’s only $5…

$5 is not something to make a song and dance about, but store operators who don’t care that their advertisements are misleading is. At best it’s lazy and shows an indifference to your customers, at worst it’s misleading, deceptive and therefore illegal.

Surely the website has a standard disclaimer somewhere that says “The management reserves the right to change the prices at any time without prior notice”.

Standard phone ordering for me includes asking for a price.

Should that change on arrival – 5 bucks is SFA.

Get over it.

Maybe you should be putting coal up your bum – because it seems that its so tight that the coal would turn to diamonds.

Will,

You can go on about relativity all you want, but there is no mathematical equation to take away the fact that your are a tightarse.

This thread has been good value for laughs.

Hey Will, while you’re out there calling everyone who dosn’t think that the world revolves around you a dead-head or whatever, it might be worth having a long hard think about what a tool you make yourself look like, firstly – by squaling like a bitch over five bucks, secondly for thinking we care and lastly – if we’re so stupid, how come the average IQ on this site goes up when you log off?

thanks hingo, I didn’t think you’d understand the concept of relativity. As for wasting your time, if you can’t realise who is doing that then there is no hope for you. It looks like I will have to type more slowly next time, so that many of you can understand the point.

I now know what has an IG of 142. It is 150 hingos, ingees and/or DawnDrifters.

I’m surprised they didn’t tell you the price over the phone when you ordered, most pizza places do that.

Cant believe theres so much arguement over $5 difference in your pizza bill… ffs pay it you tight ass, its paying someones wage, supporting someones family. you probably earn 3 times more then the guy/girl selling it to you + the pizzas would have probably been wasted. bet your one of those people that leave the pub when its their shout

I also heard Will having a cry on 1206am radio this morning. Needless to say the announcer got rid of him fairly quickly as he realised the relative stupidness of his whinge.

Will,

Firstly, I might like to remind you that we are talking about $5, not $5000. I don’t care what percentage of value $5 is in the overall price, its still $5 and its not worth arguing about.

Secondly, If you advertised your car for $42,000 and then said it was $42,005, I wouldn’t really care. Its $5. I would just think you were a tightarse, which I already think you are. As for $47,000, well as I said, we aren’t talking about $5000 here, we are talking about $5, so its irrelevant.

Thirdly, If you think being ripped off $5 is the same as being ripped off $5000, then how about I give you $5 to make up for that pizza, and you give me $5000 for wasting my time, and we can call it even.

hingo are you a classmate of inge?

There was no scene, the place was virtually deserted. What makes you think I was stressed? They quoted a price I queried it and I think realised there was no prospect of moving from our respective positions.

If I have a car advertised for $42,000 will you accept a revised price of $47,000? The relativities are the same, but I doubt you have the intelligence to understand that.

TAD I am trying to adapt my personality to match others on this site. I don’t abuse waiters or shop assistants who are merely doing their jobs.

Dry your eyes princess.

I understand you were ripped off and it sucks balls. I bought a pizza in Ngunnawal recently and was short changed $20. There was no way I could prove it since I realised too late. I built a bridge and got over it. Life sucks like that.

I mean, come on! $5!! Is it worth creating a scene over? Its not worth your time or stress. Maybe if you ate the pizza and enjoyed it instead of walking out like a moron, you would find it was worth paying the extra $5 and not getting all pissed off.

Thanks for the analysis inge. I am impressed with their ability to categorise their customers from a phone call and a quick observation as I walked through the door.

Although I didn’t look in the boxes, I am sure that that they made the pizzas in a businesslike manner. Neither of us grovelled. I wish them well in their pizza making endeavours. I also hope that they can sell most of them.

By the way, which finishing school did you go to? Do you work for DFAT? You could do wonders for our international reputation.

I agree that it was right to leave the pizza in the shop.

I disagree that this is a newsworthy topic of relevance to the wider Canberra community.

I fail to see the logic in her assertion that they could not afford to produce the pizza at the lower price, for surely they had been doing so in order to offer the advertised price ?

Similarly, when spending one’s own money, you do not have to tolerate fools or a$$holes, and opting to walk shows more dignity than sitting through the meal paid at the higher price.

That however, is my opinion rather than a comment towards a news article.

Maybe they just don’t want ar$ewipes like you eating their pizzas Will, ever thought of that? Sure, they could have given you the pizzas for $5 less, but maybe they’re in the business of making pizzas and not groveling to sanctimonious whiners.

I’m on your side Will, but it’s quite apparent your personality didn’t do you any favours.

It seems that I have attracted comments from some of the staff who are so brain dead that they will meekly pay any price that someone asks of them.

This was by no means my biggest problem over the weekend, but it was the simplest.

Just to make it clear, I looked at the online menu and ordered takeaway by phone. I didn’t see a menu in the store. The woman at the till advised the total price which did not reflect the website prices.. I was polite, as was she.

The pizzas were small, one person size. The $1.67 per pizza was probably offset by the cost of reordering and extra travel.

The moral of this story, for the deadheads who don’t get it is that I got uptight over a modest $5, but there is the remote possibility that the establishment (not Woodstock, but the one that is close to London Circuit) might review their business practice and not try this stunt again.

I realised that they didn’t have to sell me the pizzas at the advertised prices, but they might learn that apart from a few dickheads who have commented here, not everyone is as gullible.

If you Rockefellers are so dismissive of $5, then I am happy to accept your surplus notes. I will even provide a $3 product for $5. It will beat working for my money.

WMC, is the legal principle thingy known as “invitation to treat”?

If my first year law serves me correctly (and I spent an awful lot of time playing MUDs instead going to lectures ;>), yes.

Opening a store, displaying wares, having a spruiker, it’s all an invitation to treat – that is, encouraging people to enter into a contract by making an offer.

Consumer law kicks in when such an invitation is made dishonestly (we have pizzas for $5.95! Oh, wait, we only had one of those, but perhaps you’d be interested in this $15.95 pizza now that you’ve driven all this way, and no, we won’t be updating our advertisements.)

An invitation to treat is not a burden to accept an offer (just because you bring socks to the counter doesn’t mean I have to sell them to you). Likewise, a store’s acceptance of an offer is not an acceptance if it includes a counter-offer (so if I say I want a pizza with a price tag of $15, and you say you’ll let me have it for $25, I don’t have to pay you and can just walk away – you can’t say “but you said you’d take it” and sue me).

WMC, is the legal principle thingy known as “invitation to treat”?

My (albeit dodgy legal) understanding of any transaction would be that the customer presents at the counter with a product by doing so they are offering to buy the product at a price – generally the one on the price sticker – the seller then decides whether to accept or reject the offer. And that effectively, with the exception of occasional distortions created by consumer laws, the reality is that the “seller is always right” rather than the widely held view to the opposite.

On another kind of related thing where do businesses stand when they use a disclaimer like “prices subject to change without notice”?

Is it Woodstock? If so, I’m sure they can cover the $5. They have the most overpriced seafood basket on the planet.

Someone should name this store so I can try one of these Mango pizzas.

I understand the principle of what you did but you delayed food reaching your stomach by an extra 40 minutes at the minimum (20 minutes travel from civic to red hill, 20 minutes order+cooking, not inclusive of the time you spent ordering at the place in civic) all for the price of $0.83 per person(3 pizzas, 2 people per pizza).

Calm down and chill out.

Under the Trade Practices Act there’s no actual law forcing them to give it to you at the lower price, but the law of misleading and deceptive conduct would apply, as well as the ACT Fair Trading Act (eg s 22 Dual Pricing). As an aside, supermarkets have a code of conduct which forces them to give it to you at the advertised price.

I recommend that shop’s tandoori chicken and mango pizza in any event!

Was it worth $5 for your time and fuel to go to a different pizza place?

If money is such an issue, I believe you can get a Dominos pizza for $5.95 with a voucher.

Why oh why do businesses continue to offend and lose customers for the sake of a few meaningless bucks?

Years ago there wasa mob in O’Connnor called Delicate Eating and they made gourmet pizzas. A friend of mine used to get the odd one and phoned in to get a price for some fancy pants smoked chicken pizza. The price? $24.00 plus. OK, it’s steep but the deal was made. On presenting herself at the counter to receive her gold-and diamond encrusted pizza, she was informed the quote was wrong and the price was $28.50. She argued the point but the owner refused to honour the quoted price. My friend elected to fork over the cash and get the pizza because it was dinnertime already and no viable alternative existed.

The net result for the business. $4.00 added to their annual takings. Two customers who never set foot in there again. In addition about another 20 friends were turned off the business by our experience and wouldn’t go there either. A 40th birthday party for 50 people was even cancelled on the strength of it. The business ended up folding, so we doubtless weren’t the only ones they pissed off mightily.

As for those commentators above in the style of ‘get over it’ or ‘is that the biggest problem you had on the weekend?’: a bit of advice… don’t leave your current employment to open a business because if that’s your attitude you will go the way of Delicate Eating.

You make an offer when you say “Three pizzas please.”
They accept when they say “That’ll be $47, thanks.”
You can choose to walk away at that time, or you can give consideration (the $47) and complete the contract.

Still, there are laws that protect consumers against fraudulent advertising. An honest mistake is one thing, but the test of honesty is that you do everything reasonably possible to correct it as soon as is reasonably possible. “Yeah, that needs to be fixed” isn’t the same thing as “wow, sorry, I’ll fix that now.” How long since their prices changed?

Any business interested in keeping a customer’s good will would match the advertised price; throwing ingredients down the drain for the sake of $5 seems a bit thick.

Then again, did you order the pizzas in the store? Do they have the correct prices there? Did you see the correct prices, order anyway, wait for the pizzas to arrive then try to argue the difference to make a point? If so, you’d be the thick one.

They should have only charged the price as advertised, but in saying that, $5 isn’t worth arguing over. If it was me, I would have just handed over the money, but I’m not a fish arse.

I would have demanded to pay only the price as advertised.

I’m siding with Will. He offered to pay the $42 (which was advertised) and it was the restaurant declined to take it and accept a loss rather than a smaller profit.

If I’m not mistaken this same restaurant takes the “Priveleges’ card anyway that would have saved $10 anyway.

Perhaps Will didn’t stay calm and polite.

I guess it’s also worth noting that tecnically, the pizza place has the right to charge what it likes (within the bounds of consumer law of course) but even then, inadvertant and honest errors do not oblige a business to sell its goods at a price not of its choosing. Some of the legal types who frequent RA might have more to add, but I suspect that what happend here was that a purveyor of wood-fired pizzas has infact flushed out a tight-arse.

Wow, that’s got to be up their with world hunger and child exploitation. If that’s the biggest problem you had all weekend, I’d suggest you get over it!

FFS! It was only $5! Pay up and get over it. Life is too short to frack around a business like that.