Oops! I was cheated again (almost)!

If you are a frequenter of Jayanagar 4^th block commercial area, I am sure you would have visited a lot of famous eat outs there. Fourth block is one area where you get all good stuff, right from cakes and pastries at Iyengar bakery and Mayura bakery (which is closed now and has changed to a Canola outlet), chat items at Hot Chips, awesome lunch at Nagarjuna/Nandhini (and recently Maiyas) and Cothas coffee at several outlets. I used to be a regular visitor of fourth block, mainly for its variety food items and electric shopping atmosphere. One of my favorite food-stops was a famous Dosa outlet near a traffic signal.

This Dosa outlet is a famous landmark in fourth block. It even won awards for Best Dosa and Coffee two years back. I can vouch for the quality of Dosa and coffee there and I had even recommended this place to several of my friends, until recently when I found out that not all is well there! I found out that it is so easy to lose cash at the counter, when you buy your stuff, as the cashier doesn’t hand over exact change! This has not happened just once or twice, but it has happened during last 5 of my 6 visits!

Earlier, the outlet doesn’t have any board displaying the price of the food items. So the customer was at the mercy of the cashier to collect the exact amount and the customer assumes that the change given back to him is correct. Couple of months back, when I had been there, just out of curiosity, I asked the  cashier for the price of individual items. Once the cashier told me the individual items price, I realized that he hadn’t given back the exact balance and it was short by about Rs 20. So I asked for the balance and he handed over the balance Rs 20 to me. I thought it was probably a casual mistake and ignored the incident. After a few weeks, I again visited the place and once again I found out that the cashier at the Dosa outlet had given me about Rs 15 less. I had to again ask him for the line-item wise price and had to ask for the balance Rs 15. This time, something told me that I had to watch out the next time as well. During my next visit, after ordering dosas there, the cashier again gave back about Rs 30 less. It was easy for me this time to spot out that he had cheated, so I asked him for the change even without him giving me a line-item wise price list. The fourth time when I went there, I was expecting the cashier to cheat me with change, I had even told my wife that it will happen. Expectedly, he gave about Rs 12 less and my wife was totally shocked. I again argued and demanded the change back and the cashier handed over the change reluctantly. I lost trust on this “popular” Dosa outlet and decided not to visit this place too often.

Yesterday, after several months, I visited this Dosa outlet and this time, I was glad to see the price tag for individual items displayed on the board. I was happy that the customers can be vigilant now and it would lead to lesser “cheating” attempts by the cashier. I ordered 3 Dosas(Rs 60) and 3 coffees(Rs 18) and gave Rs 100 to cashier. He gave me back Rs 2 and started attending other customers! I was furious and demanded the balance. He then casually looks at the bill and gives me balance Rs 20! I was totally shocked at the way this reputed Dosa counter is consistently cheating its customers at the cash counter!

It is such a shame that this famous Dosa counter is right next to my favorite shopping destination in fourth block, about which I have blogged here and here. Dear proprietor of the “famous” Dosa outlet, please learn from your neighbor on what excellent customer service is all about!