Reader Nohreen says she bought an apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and it turned out to be rotten inside. When she called the store to complain, they told her it wasn’t rotten, just brown from having been cut awhile ago. Nohreen said she’d bring the apple back to show them that it was actually rotten, but they told her not to waste her gas because there was nothing they could do about it. When she got to the store, rather than help her, she says the employees called security.
Nohreen writes:
… The worker said that she personally cut the apple and that it was not rotten. It was brown because it had been an hour since it left the store. The worker also said that they could not do anything about it because apples turn brown. I said I would go to the store to show the worker that it was rotten. She told me that if I wanted to waste my gas, I could go to the store but they still couldn’t do anything about it.
We got to the store at approximately 5:30 PM and proceeded to make a complaint to the worker. The workers would not acknowledge our presence and decided to call security on us instead. Security arrived and took our statement and informed us that if we wanted to make a complaint we would have to go to the mall concierge. After talking with security for roughly 30 minutes, we were escorted to the concierge. We explained what had happened and the person at the concierge informed us that we could not make a complaint at the concierge. He let us know that complaints were only taken at the security office.
The concierge gave us a piece of paper containing the phone number for the storeowner of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. The store owner was contacted at 6:05 pm. The person who answered had the correct name but she was not the owner of the store. Afterwards, we walked back to the concierge to get the correct number. When we arrived at the concierge, we were told that he could not help us anymore because security had told him so. He then took the paper containing the number, crumpled it up and took it with him. He told us that he could no longer help us and that we would need to call the mall management the following day to get further assistance.
I was appalled that they called the security on me when I wasn’t even making a scene. I was just there waiting patiently for them. It was an insult to call a security on your customer. Also, we were told by the security that according to the employee per the owner they would not replace the apple. A child or anyone could have eaten that apple. I can only surmise the quality of their products and how they conduct their business. In my opinion, it only takes one bad apple to infect the rest of the bunch. When I went to the store, I wanted a replacement….now I want action. They need to learn how to conduct good customer service. I want employees to be trained better, and if needed, be reprimanded…not just employees but the owner as well.
Nohreen sent us some photos of the apple in question. We’re not botanists or anything, but that looks nasty. She says she’s filed complaints with just about every agency out there, and appears to have the situation well in hand, so we’ll just end this by saying, “Ew.”
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@Applekid: I question red delicious. Because if it’s red, it ain’t delicious.
Looks like more than likely the stick was contaminated when it was stuck into the apple.
Chargeback. Make them pay the fee for not returning or exchanging the $15 apple.
It seems that the store and the mall were both going “above and beyond” — in their attempt to make the experience as miserable as possible. When you pay that much for a treat, you expect it to be edible, AND you expect considerate treatment if you find a problem.
From the RMCF apology: “We encourage all our franchisees to adopt policies that are in accordance with local laws and regulations and that are reasonable and compassionate. However, individual policies of this nature are ultimately adopted by each franchisee.”
They’re terribly sad that their franchisee is providing rude service and bad apples, but they aren’t going to do anything because it’s up to that franchise? Giving the franchisee permission to do whatever they please is tacitly endorsing their behavior. Personally, I’m quite happy to never patronize a chain that just shrugs and says, “well, the franchise are independent…” They have your name and represent your company, have a spine and MAKE THEM LIVE UP TO YOUR ETHICS!
@mavrick67: Uhhh, yeah, caramel doesn’t “seep into” an apple — with or without the skin in place. Caramel won’t stick very well if the skin is gone in the first place…
Caramel apples survive a minimum of two weeks if freshly picked and refrigerated. A layman’s guess is either the apple wasn’t refrigerated for a week, or it’s been refrigerated for 1-2 months.
Caramel apples do rot from the inside out — you pierce the skin on the bottom letting in the bad stuff.
The health department has some pretty specific things to say about selling rotten “prepared” food.
My great aunt makes “fancy” caramel apples for a local produce barn. Only buy them if you can find a date it was dipped on the packaging or get assurance that it was dipped that day if it isn’t refrigerated. If it is refrigerated, well I’ve had them in my fridge for a month and they were fine.
/Bob
@gmss0205: that might be the apology for the incident with the diarhhea. there’s no date on it
@gmss0205:
That apology is from the “doodie” incident.
Maybe they should just put a vague apology up though and leave it up on the website for good. Keep themselves covered.
I’m with that crowd on here that’s never seen one of these places but will never go into one if I ever do now.
And I too believe they just put a vaugue auto-response apolgy on their website.
@testsicles: yep. Here’s an article about a guy who called 911 because subway forgot to add sauce to a sandwich.
[www.breitbart.com]
Obnoxious people deserve shitty service.
Surely, we can find a place to spend our chocolate dollars (mmmmm chocolate dollars) that:
a). doesn’t report you to mall security for reporting inedible food you paid for
b). doesn’t publicly humiliate small children who desperately need to potty,
and/or
c). doesn’t serve you disgusting, rotten food.
Those pictures are just nasty. There is no excuse for not teaching employees how to rotate stock, but more importantly, how to make it right when mistakes are made. Mistakes do happen. You don’t blame and persecute the customer when they do.
I guess it’s nice that they apologized, but it would have been much better if they hadn’t served rotten food and then called security when the customer had the temerity to have wanted edible for for their money in the first place.
After these two back-to-back incidents, we won’t be shopping there again. Franchised or not, the company needs to demand much higher customer service standards from the people who pay to use their name.
@sean77: That story is even more ridiculous when you consider how you actually watch subway making your sandwich as they go. If they didn’t put sauce on it at the point when he asked… he could’ve just asked them again.
Sounds like they are the “Bad Apples” to me.
Man, I have worked in the food industry for 10 years, and I always replace food/beverages when the customer is unhappy with it. It’s part of why you are there, being paid. How big of a deal is to make them a new cup of coffee, or in this instance, a new apple? What the hell is wrong with people that they call security on a complaining customer? If I chose that route, I would be doing that literally every day.
@BobTheMighty: Caramel apples need to be refrigerated? Safeway sells them in a room temperature bin around Halloween time. They’re in that awful plastic packaging, so I assume they’re safe?
It’s unclear if this is the very same store — or another store in the chain — that refused bathroom access to the kid with diarrhea.
Even if the chain claims the two transgressions were the fault of errant franchisees, the employees’ behavior in both instances seems to reflect an amazing disregard for the oldest rule in business, “the customer is always right.”
The diarrhea incident was inhuman. The refusal to replace the rotten apple was just bad business practice. Now they have lost a customer — and gotten all the bad publicity from appearing here on the Consumerist.
Really, the great majority of people are honest. If a customer comes all the way back to the store with a problem — especially given the cost of gas these days — then the store should have replaced the apple, with a smile, an apology, and no questions asked.
I agree — I had never heard of this company before, but I’ll sure avoid their stores like the plague if I ever encounter them here in New York state…
Yeah, they always have apples that sit around… for weeks. Friends of mine love Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory’s apples and they’ve gotten rotten apples more than once. They still eat it. Go figure.
I hear if you dip a sliced apple in lemon juice it won’t brown for quite a while. I’ve never tried it, so I wouldn’t really know.
So… they sell these caramel apples pre-cut now (i.e. people are too lazy to bite any more)?
The OP made an attempt to get a replacement candy apple that cost $5 while the employee refused to exchange. Where is the manager in all this? With no avenue for in-store escalation (they should have left with the apple at this point) the next step THEN would be to research online how to contact the company and make a stink for a refund or some coupons as well as an apology and explanation (so that you won’t feel disgusted instead of excited about the prospect of buying a candy apple from them again).
I’ve never heard of a food service company being such jackasses. Any restaurant or food store that I’ve been to, from McDonalds to Ritz-y Michelin/Zagat fancy whooha’s will replace just about anything that you’re not happy with.
Coke flat? Fries burnt? Fois Gras overdone? All happy to replace it. I can’t imagine what RMCF is doing not replacing any product that a customer isn’t thrilled with.
I used to be such a fan of their frozen cheesecake sticks…
It’s true about dipping a slice of an apple in lemon or lime juice – the slice shouldn’t turn brown. Same applies to an avocado after it’s been sliced open. If I ever saw an apple that looked like the one shown in the picture, I’d be on the phone to the health department immediately. There’s no excuse for RMCF’s handling of this situation. And “moron credits” to the mall’s “security” and “concierge.”
@failurate: Agree that the stick is the likely culprit just from a glance at the pics.
Sheesh, how hard is it to say, “Sorry, here’s another apple.”?
@SkokieGuy:
So, driving there and waiting patiently at the store is “out of proportion” but she should report it to the health inspectors and alert all the local media?
No offense but…bogus. Had she immediately reported them for nasty food and started calling up ABC because an APPLE, commenters here would flame the hell out of her for not trying to reason with the store first. She did as she should…and no store, no matter how small the item, should be allowed to get away with crap product and crap service.
Not a single crack about the stinky road apples at the fudge factory? We have indeed matured since the last post about this horrible, horrible chain that has far more locations near me than I ever would have guessed.
You always run the risk of substandard food when you buy something not in the mainstream of a store’s business.
You don’t buy apples at the chocolate store, you get them at the grocery store. Even caramel apples (which really should be bought at the County Fair).
Driving all that way must have been a royal pain in her Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.
@Marshfield: Nooooo, *companies* run the risk of providing crappy and/or unsafe products if *they* choose to carry items outside the mainstream of their business. The *responsibility* to provide a good product remains unchanged, but it becomes harder for them to fulfill the more items they need to track. If they can’t keep up their end, then THEY need to stop carrying those extra products.
But as long as *they* choose to, then *they* are still responsible for providing good and safe food. Blaming or penalizing the people who buy what’s offered for sale is just moronic.
While I agree that RMCF is wrong to be serving bad food, I find it hard to believe that the employees called security without some kind of threatening behavior on the part of the customer.
When employees fail to provide proper service, obtain the number of the owner and take it to the next level. If the store employees will not provide that information, obtain it through other means.
Ewww! That apple looks nasty. I don’t blame the op for returning to the chocolate store. I’d at least want my money back (I doubt I’ll ever be able to eat a candy apple for a long long time).
If a food store can’t keep their place clean, their food safe, and train their employees in food safety, the public health authorities need to be informed so they can get in there and correct them, or fine them, or shut them down. It’s not right to blame the victim when she complains that a food item is spoiled. I’d use up some fossil fuels to if I was treated so rudely by a store employee. As far as calling security is concerned, maybe the employee felt threatened, I have no clue. Odds are the whole thing was causing a scene in the store and the employee wanted to get rid of the op.
Shame on you RMCF! The management needs to get their heads out from between their buttocks and teach their employees how to serve customers and food safety. It’s fairly basic — no customers, no money, no quarterly bonuses for management.
@ogman: That’s what I’d like to believe. Some employees, at Customer Service desks, however, find that the best way to deal with a difficult, but non-threatening customer is to say hey, fuck it, and call security/threaten to call security if the customer isn’t a sheep. Places like Target, etc. Places like this are only as good as their minimum wage drones. I love Target, and Best Buy is my poison of choice. There’s a lot of poor management, but I’ve been at superbly run Targets, and poor excuses for them. Poor upper management can make for a shitty store, but incompetent store managers run stores of even the best chains. From traveling, it’s obvious to me that it depends on the locale, by which I mean the local demographics and educational system. I find it can make the difference between ambitious, competent, part-time students, and apathetic, even at times abusive high school dropouts, etc.
Brown from exposure to air or rotten. In either event, if the customer is not happy with the product, it should be quickly, easily, and cheerfully replaced. This service is just disgusting. After the Huntington Beach incident, and now this one, this company clearly needs some focus on customer service.
@FormerEA: Worker are also “within their rights” to tell you shut up and go to hell. That doesn’t make it right.
@Marshfield: So if a store decides to sell an item outside of its “main business” and screws it up, in your opinion, it’s not the store’s fault for failing; it’s the customer’s fault for buying the item?
Could you just put “OP IS AT FAULT” on a macro? It would save you time.
@Marshfield: And it is in the mainstream of their business. It’s a frakking candy store. They have dozens of varieties. It’s one of their known specialties.
@Marshfield: You know, you really, really, tread the line between picking out irrelevent minutiae and flat out blaming the OP. I disctinctly remember a comment of yours from this post
[consumerist.com]
@Marshfield: I agree. Carmel apples from a makeshift booth sitting in the hot summer sun in a farm animal infested field are MUCH more sanitary.
“THE BAD APPLE” @ RMCC
The picture does not show a rotten apple.That apple is bruised and this happens if it was dropped.
Calling the news and the health dept. you guys are funny. It is a piece of fruit. Anyone who knows that fruit and veggies are grown on a farm can see that this is a bruise and the apple is not by any means rotten. But then again all fruits rots. Like your Bannana’s soft? Well they rot to get soft, let them rot to much they turn black. Pick a tomato and it starts rotting from the minute it leaves the vine. The candy store was idiots on their handling of this but then again the OP went a little to far. Apples in July are from storage from last September or came all the way from Austriala by boat. There are bound to be a few bruised apples.
Hi Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory,
Just in case someone from your company does read this and starts thinking “well, this doesn’t impact business so much…”
I’d never heard of your company before reading a story here about a sick young boy needing to use your restroom and being refused, only to be followed up with even worse customer service from a manager. “Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory? Never heard of them, but not shopping there anyway…” I thought.
Two weeks ago I was stuck at an airport and realized I needed to buy a present for a friend at my destination. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some chocolate boxes and made a beeline. Then, as soon as I saw the name on the sign out of the corner of my eye, I hightailed it out of there. A story like this makes it even more likely that next time I’m at an airport, I’ll not only make sure I don’t shop at your store but I’ll do all I can to avoid it… and tell my friends about it.
You might think that little stories like this don’t matter but they do: it’s not the initial mixup that’s the problem, it’s your company’s inability to effectively diffuse problem situations that bugs me.
@Oregon: you need to go back to school an realize that apples are not soft flesh fruits and don’t bruise without the PUNCTURING on the skin. Show me in those pics where the impact points are from the fall it took. That it clear cut ROT. Sell that SH*T to some other dumb fool.
–Bruised… HA… to the core and he says bruised……LOL
@Oregon: BTW my family makes Candy Apples and sell the EVERY MARDI GRAS season in New Orleans… so my 20+ years of hot ass sugar dipped apples qualifies me to make that comment
@Cordfucious v 2.0.1: “Hot ass sugar dipped apples” LOL! Please tell me that’s what you call your caramel apples.
@ceejeemcbeegee: LOL. that was sooo unintentional. But we dip ours in a red sugar coating that forms a glass-like shell.
My apples haven’t been dipped ever…LOL
“Making a complaint” can be construed as a threat if done in particular ways. When the associate didn’t acknowledge you (and that is wrong) did you yell, bang the counter, etc. There aren’t enough details.
As for the apple, ewww. I would have wanted a replacement too. But at the moment they decided they didn’t want to help me, I would have escalated. And not wasted the gas going back to the store.
She forgot the magic phrase: “What is your name and may I have your regional manager’s contact information?”
All these horrid stories showing up lately. There should be some sort of legal authority that upholds standards of business and legal practices and food safety conditions. Oh wait, I forgot… there is, and they don’t do their jobs.
I think we need a Judge Dredd of consumerism. Judge, jury, and executioner of business. I’d like that job.
Call the county health department on them to get them to stop selling Rotten Apple, Crunchy Frog, Lark’s Vomit, and Anthrax Ripple.
cordfucious said” my 20+ years of hot ass sugar dipped apples qualifies me to make that comment”
sorry your twenty years of selling candy apples pales to my growing up on a 200 acre orchard. Living with apples 365 days a year from thinning to harvest to the packing house. I now live again in a major fruit growing region, after college worked out west as a foreman in a large 400 acre operation with our own packing facility and my answer stands. You knowledge is limited as any apple grower has seen this many times before. The skin does not have to break to cause a bruise like this. A good hard drop will not always break the skin of a granny smith or several other varieties. Btw: my youngest just finished three weeks of thinning pears at the neighbors orchard.
Actually, I agree with the person who said it looks more like caramel seeped into the center. Look at the pattern. It originates around where the stick penetrates the core and spreads outward. I don’t know how they make the apples, but if they skewer the fresh apple then coat it with caramel, it’s certainly possible for the caramel to seep in through the hole the stick has made, especially if the hole is large.
I couldn’t say for sure that it was rotten from the picture alone. I think you’d have to be able to smell it and test the texture of the center to be sure it wasn’t the caramel seeping inside.
Regardless of what it is, the store should have replaced or refunded the product if the customer wasn’t happy. It’s absurd how combative and argumentative businesses can be about such trivial things.
That is one chain that knows nothing about brown-nosing its customers.
RMCF is the worst place you can go for a sugary snack. Their service sucks, every place is franchised so corporate can say it’s not their fault, I would have rather used that gas to buy a Mars bar or something.