Condo resident's birthday surprise gets thrown in dustbin due to failed delivery, and pastry shop even sends pic

Statement from L'éclair on Oct 10 in response to Stomp's query on Oct 5:

"This is L'eclair's Standard Delivery Protocols:

1. Upon arrival, the driver will get in touch with the recipient via ringing the intercom/doorbell or calling his/her mobile phone. Consecutively, the driver would inform us so we could contact the sender to report about the unsuccessful delivery. If the sender is unable to contact the recipient, we will offer him/her the following options:

- Opt for redelivery
- Send to an alternative address;

Both options are at the sender's cost.

2. In any occasion that both parties are uncontactable for 15 minutes from the driver's first delivery attempt; we would have to resort to the following solutions:

- For the driver to keep for his consumption; or
- For disposal, to ensure that food items are not left out and risk contamination/spoilage

3. After receiving consent from the sender/customer, we will take the next steps accordingly.

___________________

"In this case, we made multiple attempts to contact both the sender and the recipient but to no avail. We were also denied access by security guards to deliver the items to the door as there was no one answering the unit's intercom to acknowledge the delivery.

"Based on our past experiences, security guards typically do not accept deliveries on behalf of their residents as they do not wish to be liable should anything happen. It was the same this time round. We had spoken to the security personnel to negotiate for an exception to hang the item at the unit while we inform the sender and recipient but he didn’t permit us to do so.

"Subsequently, the delivery driver had also declined our offer to keep the eclairs for his personal consumption as L’eclair Patisserie is not halal-certified. We respected the delivery driver’s decision.

"In summary, we understand that some purchases are for surprises and there are instances that the recipients are unavailable at the time of delivery.However, we seek our customers’ understanding in that we engage a third party service for our deliveries and we are unable to request drivers to wait for every recipient to collect the items. This will adversely affect their punctuality for subsequent deliveries (for us and other businesses they are delivering items for).

"At L’éclair, we take pride in delivering quality products to our customers and we ensure that our products are fresh and safe for consumption. As the eclairs are highly perishable, they should be kept refrigerated within 1 to 2 hours of dispatching/purchase, so as to avoid contamination or spoilage. Given the circumstances (as set out above), we made the difficult decision to discard the items.

"We apologise for the unpleasant experience that this customer has faced. While we have been successful in resolving past issues concerning delivery attempts, we will continue to seek improvement in our overall operations to avoid similar incidents."

Original article:

What was supposed to be a surprise birthday gift from a colleague ended up in the dustbin as the unsuspecting birthday girl was not home to receive the delivery.

Stomper Jasmin said her colleague had made an order from L'éclair Pâtisserie and arranged for it to be delivered to her home on Sunday (Oct 4).

"It was meant to be a surprise hence I was not given heads up to expect this delivery," shared the Stomper.

Jasmin, a condominium resident, said a deliveryman from the éclair specialty store called her "four times within 11 minutes" on Sunday morning as he was unable to access her unit via the intercom.

However, Jasmin missed the calls as she had been in the hospital visiting her mother.

She shared: "Next thing I know, I received a message from my colleague, who apologised and informed me about my gift being disposed into the rubbish bin by the deliveryman.

"The deliveryman later shared me with that he had been instructed by L'éclair to do so.

"At the same timing, my helper had informed me of a flower delivery from another friend. If the florist had no issues delivering the flowers to my place, why did L'éclair face a challenge?"

Jasmin shared a screenshot showing her colleague being informed about the order getting discarded as both of them could not be reached.

"As stated in the terms and conditions, there will be no re-delivery," said the message, which was accompanied by a photo of Jasmin's gift in a dustbin.

Jasmin told Stomp: "This is indeed a 'surprise' on my birthday!

"I just wanted to make people aware about making surprise deliveries, so that they don't receive such disappointment and a picture of their birthday gift being thrown into the bin on their birthdays.

"L'éclair could have at least asked my colleague, who I'm sure would not mind paying the re-delivery fee, compared to the amount paid for the éclairs.

"They didn't even apologise for throwing the item away!"

According to L'éclair's website, delivery costs between $18 and $25 per location.

Here are the terms and conditions on the order page of L'éclair's website:

L'éclair also recommends that its éclairs are refrigerated within one to two hours from purchase to prevent spoilage or contamination.

The pastries' short shelf life outdoors could be the reason why the store discards failed deliveries instead of arranging re-deliveries.

Stomp has contacted L'éclair for more info.