Not sure where this data is coming from but for months now I've been ordering ice cream through the McDonalds app only to find out when I get there that the machine is broken and that they can't cancel or refund the order, which ultimately results in a stressful cash refund. It's happened multiple times at various locations around Manhattan. Eventually I'll just use this method to get 30-day cash loans on my credit card.
Take it from someone who has spent a few summers troubleshooting, fixing, flushing and cleaning soft serve ice cream machine. If they are not working one day do not go back there and buy ice cream.
There are few employees who are trained to maintain and clean those thing at McDonald's.
If they get gross they usually just turn them off which cuts the cooling and then it gets very very nasty.
Getting a bellyache is the bear to hope for.
Disclaimer. I didn't work for McDonald's and it was two decades ago.
It still puke a little if I even see people eating it
3 hours I'm a closed kiosk at 31C cleaning out machines is a nightmare. The smell is horrible. But they didn't allow opening the flaps and letting air conditioning since it would be optically and stinkwise off putting for customers
It's not free. That cash refund isn't refunding the merchant their processing costs for the credit card. And that's what's paying your 5% cash back. The store is losing a pennies each time that happens and some of them are flowing to you.
Well, yes, but it's also them not refunding via the original payment processor and them letting the order go through despite being unable to fulfil it. I don't want to make a point that this is the moral thing to do, but the error is with McD here.
I'm not making any moral judgement. I'm just explaining where that money is coming from, and that it's not "free". Also, issuing a refund would still likely incur fees with the processor. They may dodge fees if they are within the window to void the transaction instead. Depends on their processor and contract.
Sure. But there is no actual thing as "free" money, in the sense that it all comes from somewhere. And honestly, probably nothing is truly free. Even sunlight is the result of spent nuclear potential of the Sun. Unearned is maybe a more precise adjective to use in these scenarios.
But again, the point behind my comment was to explain where the money was actually coming from. I feel like these responses keep trying to apply a moral-judgement reading to my comment where none was intended. If one didn't know the details behind merchant credit processing, they didn't know where that cash back was coming from. And the answer is that the merchant still lost money in that transaction.
Yeah I get that. I feel like my reply might not have properly explained itself.
Nobody is applying a moral judgement to your comment (that I've seen at least), we're pointing out that yes, we know there is no such thing as free money in a grand sense. For most people on this board merchant fees aren't some unknown thing. We know this, and obviously McDonalds takes a tiny hit for the fees every time they refund a card transaction with cash.
It's free money to the person it happens to is what the commenters were saying. McDonalds refunds my card payment with cash, I get the credit card points and my money back. It's free money. To me. McDonalds taking a hit is irrelevant to me as I did not lose anything, I only gained. Hence free money. The context is important.
If this is true you're also earning points for your purchase. I don't know why they wouldn't be able to refund an app-based order though beyond ignorance, considering I've had it done before.
Starbucks is really bad at this as well. I used to sit at a counter next to the pickup shelf, and probably 40 times a month just during times I was there, a mobile order would come through for unavailable items.
McDonald's mobile ordering has multiple contradictory and nonfunctional answers on how to get a refund, and I'm not sure any of them actually work. I'm going to try a chargeback soon.
