A PIZZA chain has made a grovelling apology after a woman found a spider in her takeaway and was then “humiliated” by staff.
The customer had to enlist the help of a local council to have the spider forensically tested, after the Crust “gourmet pizza bar” in Essendon insisted the unwanted topping was merely caramelised onion.
After the forensic report confirmed it was a spider, Crust agreed to pay her $100 compensation, and to give her a $50 food and drink voucher.
But when she arrived to collect the cash, she was shocked when staff handed her a bucket of small change totalling $100.
She is now taking legal action against the chain, which has more than 140 stores across Australia and overseas.
The customer, who asked not to be named, said the incident and the way it was handled by Crust made her and her family “shocked, mortified and disgusted”.
“The spider was one thing and it could have been handled and resolved very quickly on the day,” she said.
“But first they called me a liar and then once I proved it was a spider, they still treated it as a joke.”
She ordered the pizza on November 26 last year.
When the pizza shop denied it was a spider, it took her a month to prove it was, with the help of Moonee Valley council.
“The way Crust treated me when I went back by giving me the compensation in small change ... I have never felt more humiliated. The whole thing was demeaning, embarrassing and stressful,” she said.
Lee Flanagan, principal at Arnold Thomas & Becker, told the Herald Sun his law firm was commencing a claim for damages in the Federal Court.
“It is for psychological injury for the trauma sustained after discovering the spider, then the aggravation of our client’s injury by the subsequent denial, saying it was caramelised onion, and then the mocking of the situation by staff,” Mr Flanagan said.
“This is lesson 101 on how not to deal with a customer complaint,” he added.
A Crust spokeswoman said: “We’d like to sincerely apologise to the customer.”
She said the company had contacted the owner of the Essendon store to “discuss the handling of the incident”.
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