I touched on this briefly a few days ago in All the Small Things #1, thinking it wouldn't need an entire post of its own. I was wrong. The emails I've received from a national pizza chain denying my request for a refund have pushed me over the edge, so I need to talk about just how fucked up it is that late-stage capitalism has made any of this even possible. I have not named the chain here because it could compromise my blogging anonymity, but if you know anything about the Netherlands, you can probably figure it out.

On Tuesday evening, after having a ~day~, I decided to order dinner from a local store in this chain. I have frequently had problems with their customer service, which I assume is because they're staffed by people who don't even know what a frontal cortex is, let alone possess a developed one. But I'd always let it slide because the fuck-ups were always minor and their food is a little bit cheaper and a lot more comforting on a shitty day. But this time, they really fucked up.

I placed my order at 4pm for an ASAP delivery because I was so done with the day that I just wanted to eat and then crawl into bed. I've ordered from them this early plenty of times before, on a Tuesday too, and usually had my food within 30 to 45 minutes. I had no reason to think this time would be any different. The tracker on the app showed things were running a little slow, which I was fine with. I still expected my food to eventually get here within a reasonable time, be warm, and be the complete, correct order.

At 4:50pm, the tracker said my order was on the way. Yay! Previously, this meant it should be with me in 20 minutes, tops. At 5pm, it was marked as delivered. This has happened before too, and they'd usually show up five minutes later, so I didn't worry too much. But by 5:15, I was starting to wonder if maybe, they'd delivered to the wrong house again (yes, this has happened before aswell) or something had happened to the driver, and I called to find out what was going on.

The guy on the phone couldn't understand my Dutch (fair enough, that one's on me), but then also couldn't understand what I was asking in English either. Eventually, he figured it out and told me the order was still on its way. I took him at his word and kept waiting. As it started to close in on 6pm with still no sign of it, I called back, and as I was on the phone, the driver finally pulled up. With only two of the three items I'd ordered. I reached for the boxes while asking where the third item was, and the moment I felt how cold they were, I rejected the order and asked for a refund.

I don't know what planet you have to be living on to believe that it's reasonable to expect that a customer would accept an order that was incomplete, stone cold, and delivered almost an hour after the tracker said it had arrived, but apparently, that's the planet they live on.

Because bureaucracy is king in this country, I couldn't just get a refund on the spot. I had to go through their customer service system, which filters your complaint through head office back to the franchise, which then apparently has every right in the world to respond with: "Nah, actually, we won't refund you, because we reckon we did our job. We delivered that incomplete, cold order to you, even if it was an hour late. You rejected it. It's your fault."... as per policy.

The moment after I read that email, I tried to request a chargeback via my bank. This is when I learnt that iDeal, the direct bank payment system most widely used in the Netherlands, does not allow chargebacks. Not even in cases where the service was not rendered. They almost certainly know and take advantage of this. I don't think I'm being dramatic when I say they have stolen from me. They did not provide the service I paid for, they refused to return my money, and they are likely going to get away with it.

This could have just been a simple story about bad customer service, but it has become something else entirely. They have decided to abuse the system to ensure that their revenue is protected rather than simply resolving a dispute. My order total was just under €17. I'd even pre-tipped the driver on top of the delivery fee. For any Americans reading, this is not required. It's just a nice thing to do. I did a nice thing, and they did this. They're now fighting me over a measly €17.

This is what late-stage capitalism is. Bad customer service is no longer about people failing to help you, it's about systems succeeding at not helping you.

Even though "the customer is always right" thing has always been a bit of myth, customer satisfaction used to be treated as an important part of running a business, because reputation and returning customers were something companies worked to protect. Now, it seems, the only thing that matters is shareholder value. Shareholders don't give a shit that my order was extremely delayed, cold and not complete. But what shareholders don't realise is that the €17 they're not giving me back now is going to cost them hundreds in the long run, because I will never order from them ever again.

But what I am going to do is fight. You simply do not steal from me and expect me to roll over and let you do it. I am not someone who quietly leaves injustice alone. I may never get my money back, but they're never going to hear the end of it until I do. I have lodged a complaint with the Dutch consumer rights authority and left a number of negative reviews. I will continue to make my voice heard until they are no longer getting away with this shit.

In fact, today is the day I abandon my long-held opinion that reformed and regulated capitalism is really our only option for a functional, safe, and free society. Death to ALL forms of capitalism. And yes, absolutely just because a pizza chain "legally" stole €17 from me. Reform and regulation would definitely lessen the chance of it happening again, but without capitalism altogether, they'd have to find another way to scam us. I'm sure they'd eventually manage to come up with something because assholes will always exist, but at least it won't be government-supported.