Fish and chips may as well be in Manila

BY KIRAN CHUG AND MATT CALMAN

Manila call centre operators might not know how far Petone is from Paraparaumu, but for Shaun Killalea the distance meant a long wait for fish and chips.

The Paraparaumu resident called the Manila-based 018 directory service on Monday night for the number of the new shop Mac's Fish.

He was given the number of Go Fish in Petone, nearly 50 kilometres away.

It was not until family members went to pick up the order – a 40th birthday treat – that the mistake was discovered.

Earlier this year, the owners of the Yellow Group moved the 018 call centre to Manila, in the Philippines.

The move was followed by a string of complaints about operators' interpretation of Kiwi placenames and the spelling of Maori words.

Mr Killalea said 018 should pay because its call centre operator had lacked the knowledge to give the correct information. "They obviously don't know how far Petone is to Paraparaumu."

He was not sure of the new shop's name and so called 018 to get the phone number.

"All you can read [on the sign] is 'fish', so I asked for the number for 'fish' in Paraparaumu."

He also spelt out the Kapiti Coast town, but when no listing for fish came up, he was asked whether he wanted the number for a shop called Go Fish.

"I asked if it was in Paraparaumu. He said, 'Yes'."

Mr Killalea rang the number and ordered "pretty much everything on the menu".

But when his sisters went to collect the food the new shop knew nothing about it.

Mr Killalea rang the number again and told the Petone shop of the error and that it was too far for them to pick the order up.

"I feel bad for them, they're out of money," he said yesterday.

Go Fish owner Jacky Zhi said it was the second time in a year he had been forced to ditch an order because a customer had been given the wrong number by the 018 service.

A spokeswoman for 018 said that, although the company suffered "teething troubles" when it first transferred the service overseas, it was now confident the service was comparable with what had been offered when it was in New Zealand.

She said Mr Killalea had been refunded the cost of his call, which 018 did every time a mistake was made, and would be offered an $80 fish and chip meal at some point during the Christmas holidays.

The company was working with Go Fish to resolve the problem.

Civil litigation lawyer Paul Chisnall said that, if there was a mistake, 018 could make a gesture of goodwill toward the Petone store but "it would be hard getting ... any legal liability on it".

"You'd expect [018] to apologise if there was an error but it would be a bit tough on holding [them] liable on those sort of things. The people in Petone just have to wear it."

- © Fairfax NZ News