Declaring War on Duck Donuts

Never heard of Duck Donuts? 

Consider yourself lucky. 

I've had their donuts a couple times before and in all honesty...pretty good. The relatively small chain provides a range of customizable donuts. Again, as far as quality goes these donuts are bomb...no pun intended on the above image.

Having said that, FUCK DUCK DONUTS. 

The source of my hatred comes from an event this past Sunday September 18th 2022, a day that will live in infamy for the water-bird pastries. My wife and I stayed the night at my brother, and his wife's place and in the morning I offered to order donuts for everyone. I placed an online order with the Fairlawn location. Order went through, I received a confirmation for my order and a pick up time of 9:04am was sent to my email. When I arrived at Duck Donuts there was a sign on the door that said "Closed Today Due to Short Staffing." Annoying? Yes. But this is not something to wage war over. 

The frustrating part was the fact I was charged for the donuts, again, sure it's annoying but I was certain I would be able to resolve the issue pretty easily. Boy, was I wrong. 

As soon as I saw the sign I called and left a message for the store encouraging them to call me Monday morning and we would settle the issue. Monday morning rolls around, no call. We get to the afternoon and I still haven't heard from anyone, so I called the store...voicemail. Now my frustration starts to build. My wife reaches out to Duck Donuts on a couple different social media platforms, while I try to contact their corporate office to no avail. I tried messaging their corporate office through their webpage but every time I hit submit on my message an "error" notification popped up and it wouldn't allow me to send a message. 

Now, I decide to call the corporate office. Sure enough it is an automated message on the other end encouraging me to write them a message on their webpage they created to "better serve their customers." You might be thinking "wait, surely it must be a different webpage than the one you already messaged." No. Same one that kept giving me an error notification every time I tried messaging the explanation of the situation. 

I get home from work Monday evening, and my wife finally heard back from Duck Donuts on Instagram. They gave her an email address and encouraged me to send an email explaining the situation and they would expediate their response time to resolve the issue. I sent them a lengthy email. Nothing over the top, but basically just explaining every step of this situation. Every hoop I have had to jump through to get my money back for donuts I never even received. I sent the email, assuming I would hear back from them Tuesday morning. 

Tuesday morning comes and goes and I still hear from no one. I once again give the Fairlawn location a call...voicemail. At this point I decide to call the mall Duck Donuts in Fairlawn is attached to. I talked to the security guard who tells me he thinks they are open because they are supposed to notify the mall if they close. He puts me on hold to personally walk there to investigate. Turns out they're closed, and now the security guy is mad along with me. I narced on them, I'm not happy about it. I operate on a strict "snitches get stitches policy" but at this point we are nearing war times and whatever guidelines I have followed before go out the window when we are at war. 

So, while I know Fairlawn has once again closed, I still haven't talked to anyone, to ensure I will get my money back. And I'll be honest, at this point I feel I am owed a sincere apology at the very least. I then decide maybe I should try to contact other Duck Donut locations to see if they can connect me with a district or regional manager. After calling a couple locations, which were ultimately no help. I finally get ahold of someone at their Mechanicsburg, PA location. Guy on the phone tells me he will call their corporate office and give me a call back. Which is frustrating, because at this point I think I am owed a conversation. Why can I not have the number Mechanicsburg guy is calling? Why can I not talk to whoever he is talking to? But whatever I am digressing. Anyway he calls me back and tells me he has made them aware of my situation and they are looking into it. I told him "thanks but I'm not going to hold my breath, because I'm not interested in suffocating." 

I made a statement this morning, that if I didn't hear back from anyone at Duck Donuts today I would wage war against them. And outside of the one call-back I received from the Mechanicsburg guy I haven't heard from anyone regarding my situation, so we are now just hours away from war against the cruller fowls. What does war against a sweet pastry establishment look like? Well I'm glad you asked. 

The irrational side of me wants to start a competing donut company. I want to start a company out of spite, and I want to make it my life's mission to take down Duck Donuts if it's the last thing I do. I want to pop champagne when the last of their stores closes it's doors for good, and not for short staffing. I want Washington State to beat the breaks off of Oregon this weekend because that's just how badly I want to fade everything related to ducks.  

It was never about the money, all of this was about principle. It is just crazy to me that an establishment will take my money immediately, and then it will take days to hear back from anyone about getting that money back. I mean if this was a missing person's case we're well past the first 48 hours so, by that logic my money is as good as gone. I really don't care about getting my money back for these donuts, I just feel like I am owed an apology at this point, and the fact we are now days into this saga and I have heard from NO ONE...I mean this is an act of personal war as far as I'm concerned. 

I'm sure some of you may be looking at the image above and thinking "PNC? Air BnB? DoorDash? What did those places do wrong?" Well those are all stories for another time. But for now, just know these are wartimes against Duck Donuts.

I will keep updates coming as this story continues to progress. Thanks for reading.  

-BG