Tuesday, December 01, 2009

latest hungry jack's ripoff

can you believe how shameless hungry jack's are in their chasing of profits? first they changed the default size of combo meals from medium to small. this doesn't particularly bother me as it's probably for the best that i eat less fries and the drinks usually have free refills. it's more the way they've tried to sneak it in quietly that i find rather dishonest. now at the innaloo branch (and quite likely others) they've taken this one step further. i was in there yesterday and noticed that when the person in line before me placed his order, the guy behind the checkout asked if he wanted it medium or large. of course, the bloke asked for medium and was charged the upgrade fee. there was no mention from the checkout guy that there was an extra charge for a medium meal and no mention of the option of having a small meal. when i ordered my whopper meal, he asked me the same question: "do you want medium or large?" (with the voice intonation dropping on 'large', thereby implying that these are the only two options). i replied by asking, "don't you do small sizes anymore?" to which he looked rather surprised and asked, "sorry?". i repeated the question and he confirmed that they do small meals so i placed the order for that.

i realise that the upgrade fee is only 55 cents but it's the principle of the matter. if they're going to ask which size you want, they should either offer all the choices or none; not just the choices that attract an extra charge. i would presume that most people, when asked if they want medium or large, would choose medium. using a simple, dishonest tactic, hungry jack's are now able to entice the majority of customers to pay for an upgrade without realising they're doing it which i reckon is pretty unethical.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's upselling Dave and it doesn't just happen at HJ's. "Successful" salespeople are good upsellers (no matter what the product). BTW I am right off HJ's now. I don't ever think i'll eat there again. The last couple of times I've been there the restaurant has been filthy, the service has been way below par and the food is only just edible. I would like to buy there but until they change their ways here's one customer they've lost.

dave said...

hmmmm.. well it still stinks to me and in my humble opinion is unethical at best; outrightly dishonest at worst. they used to ask if the customer wanted to upgrade and i have no problem with that but i have big problems with the way they're doing it now. i sent a message to HJ's with a link to my post so management are aware people are onto what they're up to. i doubt i'll hear back from them though

as for the food, i still love a whopper or an aussie burger and will continue to eat there.. it leaves the disgusting mcdonalds food for dead.

Gabrielle said...

how dare they but with Australia's ever increasing waist line maybe they are doing us a favor!!