We placed an order with a Lebanese restaurant at 7:30 PM. My confirmation email said that the order would arrive by 8:45 PM. 8:45 came and went with nary a knock on the door or a phone call. At 9:20, I called Takeout Taxi to check the status of the order, and the representative put me on hold to contact the driver. When he returned, he told me that the driver was in the restaurant picking up the order and that he would be there with the delivery within 15 minutes. Slightly annoyed, I asked why the driver was at the restaurant 20 minutes after the order was supposed to arrive at my apartment, and he said the food was taking a long time to be prepared and that it was really the restaurant's fault and it was out of their control. At this point I was a little miffed, but hey, these things happen, and another 15 minutes doesn't really matter. Then I realized that I already had the Lebanese restaurant's website up on my laptop, and I went to their "Hours and Directions" page - sure enough, they close at 9 PM on Sunday night, so there's no way the driver could have been in the restaurant waiting for our order at 9:20. Now fairly suspicious, I go to Takeout Taxi's Yelp page and read about 20 1-star reviews from people who've gotten this exact same story, and even a few where Takeout Taxi had told them the driver was at the restaurant, and then later cancelled the order entirely due to the driver having a flat tire or some other car trouble.
Anyway, 15 minutes come and go, and still nothing. At 9:50, I called Takeout Taxi again and got the same rep. He put me on hold again, then came back and said that the driver had left the restaurant when he had told me he had (9:20) but was now having "circumstances" that were further delaying him, but he would be there within 5 minutes. I asked what kind of circumstances, and he said "the driver won't say," and that he would remove the $6.99 delivery fee and throw in a free 6-pack of soda. I told him that wouldn't be necessary, as I didn't want the order to be delayed further, and really, we were just hungry and wanted the food we had ordered nearly two and a half hours ago. He asked me to hold again while he contacted dispatch, and then returned and said "I'm very sorry, but the driver is having major, major issues with his car and unfortunately we won't be able to deliver this order." So, within the same phone call, we've gone from "your order will be there in 5 minutes" to "you're not getting your order at all." Now it's 10 PM on Sunday night, everything is closed, and we have no food in the house - the customer service rep was moderately apologetic but just kept saying "it's out of our control" even when I asked why there were so many online reviews where this exact situation had happened, and why he had told me the driver was in the restaurant when the restaurant was already closed.
We ended up getting Lean Cuisines from the 24 hour CVS down the street - not exactly the delicious Lebanese spread we were hoping would make us feel better about losing most of our food after a long weekend.
TL;DR: We order dinner from a delivery service, wait 2.5 hours and are lied to repeatedly by customer service before being told we're not getting our order at all.
