Our refund depended on another customer complaining...
We spent £54.90 on a takeaway from Istanbul Turkish Cuisine in Melton Mowbray. Unfortunately, there were missing accompaniments and, much more seriously, problems with the meat.
Neither of our two Lamb Shish meals had its salad. Only one small, approximately half-filled salad was provided for the whole order. The manager subsequently accepted that insufficient salad had been supplied.
There was also no yoghurt or Ezme and very little bread for three main meals. I was told that these items are "complimentary" and therefore not guaranteed. The difficulty with that explanation is that we had placed a similar, smaller order the week before and all of them had been supplied. I have no objection whatsoever if these accompaniments need to be purchased separately, but customers need to know.
More concerningly, the lamb had an unpleasant smell, a sour taste and an unusual grainy surface texture. We tried it but did not feel comfortable continuing to eat it. The chicken was also chewy and fatty.
We abandoned the meal and contacted the restaurant immediately. After supplying photographs as requested, I spoke to the manager and asked for a refund. I was initially offered £6.10 against our £54.90 order. When I declined and requested a full refund, the manager spoke to the owner.
She subsequently telephoned me back and told me that they would only issue a refund if another customer complained that evening. I was also told that the restaurant was only legally obliged to refund 50% and that we should return the food so that they could cook the order again. We live approximately 20 minutes away.
What I find most extraordinary is the suggestion that the legitimacy of our complaint somehow depended upon whether another customer happened to complain that night. We were not asking for compensation. We simply wanted our £54.90 returned for a meal which, because of its quality, we had stopped eating.
A refund and an apology would have resolved the entire matter. The way the complaint was handled instead turned a bad meal into a very poor overall customer experience.








