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#SaveBigAppleHotDogs

The story of the devastation caused to Big Apple Hot Dogs by the incompetence and eye-watering over-charging of storage and fulfilment service e2b

Since July 2020 Big Apple Hot Dogs [BAHD], the much-loved independent brand that I built up from a hot dog cart in Shoreditch 12 years ago, has had the lifeblood sucked out of it. Not by COVID or the current crises, but by GIG - a shambolic & shameless Goliath Vampire of a corporation, whose clients include Coldplay, Glastonbury Festival and The National television Awards.

GIG contacted me in July 2020 to tout their storage and fulfilment services, since they were desperate for revenue, because the pandemic had wiped out their festival & catering business.

But, having misrepresented their grasp of technology, processes, facilities and entire culture, they have caused devastation to my business by operating at inconceivable levels of incompetence, over-charging at an eye-watering scale and failing to respond to queries, provide evidence or any way to minimise the losses and damage my company has been sustaining.

To compound the damage they have seized BAHD’s stock, refused to let me monetise it and allowed thousands of items to become food waste, basically in an attempt to hold me over a barrel & bully their way out of explaining or being held accountable for, amongst other things:

  • Their 940% increase in Big Apple’s storage charges over 18-months, without agreement, explanation of  methodology / source data from GIG/e2b, and without the slightest benefit to my company, customers or suppliers. The initial avg. storage cost was £1.09 per Big Apple order, growing to £15.50 per order in November 2021 - the point at which I insisted on a full explanation before full payment.   
  • The abysmal 26.7% error rate that GIG/e2b admitted operating at on BAHD’s orders, whereas the industry average error rate is 1-3%.  Order errors are the
  • Never providing a service level agreement, instead allowing me to spend 18 months packing & shipping missing items & replacement orders from BAHD HQ and at Big Apple’s own cost. Only by chance did I discover that customers had the right to free replacement of missing items & refunds for lost stock (if e2b were at fault) and that GIG/e2b had been withholding this from BAHD.
  • Sending inaccurate, unreasonable payment demands and greeting explanatory & conciliatory emails from a distressed customer with contemptuous disregard.
  • Despite the e2b/GIG Operations manager admitting over-charging & errors in storage, John Ford refusing to discuss or reflect, for even a second, and summarily throwing my business and my family’s future under the bus.
  • Not responding to solutions offered by Big Apple or replying to queries on the paranormally significant decrease in pallet numbers of the seized stock, despite no orders being fulfilled.  This drop is never reflected in payment demands from GIG/e2b and never gives them pause for thought on the whole fiasco, which is their pallet charging & invoicing processes.
  • Not once offering the slightest compromise, or accepting arbitration, and instead  instructing their lawyers to threaten legal action via an extravagantly inept & misleading Letter Before Action. A legal letter which featured a host of inaccuracies, including  demanding a sum which omitted credits from Big Apple and which they sent (by email only) to a random email address of persons unknown.
  • Inflicting even more damage by, unnecessarily, obliging me to incur legal fees (currently standing at £5k+) to respond to their letter before action, and to have any chance of justice. That letter was sent a month ago, and I’m still in the dark as to their intentions.

Meanwhile at GIG/e2b HQ:

  • 1,460 of my sausages & 3,906 buns  plus numerous desserts, toppings & drinks have now passed their sell by date, sitting in GIG/e2b's warehouse. #FoodWaste caused by this tin-eared giant's refusal to let me sell it, or even gift it to food banks.
  • 4,340 more sausages are due to expire on the 20th of November 2022 in Eat to The Beat’s freezers, yet they boast about their green credentials at Glastonbury
  • But, with a couple of simple acts of kindness from you right now…
  • 29,505 of our sausages can still be saved
  • and Big Apple Hot Dogs might survive and even thrive!

The Needless Damage Done

My lawyers asked me to calculate what GIG/e2b’s failings have cost my business:

There’s the £1,739.524 spent on an IT consultant, writing to code to workaround e2b’s inability to provide even the most basic reporting.

Lawyers fees as of 26th October 2022

Arriving at the £12610.53 in over-charging was complicated, but I got there in the end.

Quantifying Incalculable Harm

3,000 hours of my own time has been spent (since July 2020) initiating 1083 emails to e2b, alone (not to mention follow up emails) plus emails & calls with confused & frustrated customers.

 

I simply can’t take this level of injustice lying down. Even if my business doesn’t survive their “services” it will go out fighting and red in tooth and claw.