I’ve been busy with exam prep. And it pains me that I’m unable to spend any time on the series on religion, secularism, and freedom in Malaysia. I’ll get right back to that as soon as time constraints permit me to. But here’s something else that I felt I should post.
In a previous post (which oddly enough has nothing to do with pizzas or huts), Sai Bhanu akka commented that she’d heard of a special tax that non-Malay customers of Pizza Hut Malaysia outlets had to pay, which Malay customers didn’t have to. She told me to go here for possible evidence that the rumour was true. The link leads to an online consumer awareness forum, where consumers can air their complaints against certain companies and generally share information on smart consumerism.
There was a letter posted in one of the forums, which I reproduce below, unedited:
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Is Pizza Hut Discriminating Malaysians?
Category: All, Food & Beverage | Posted By: megadisc | Posted Date: Tue, 13-06-2006
Complaint No: FNB0606035X
Business Name: Pizza Hut Malaysis S/B
THis was taken from a net flier. Pls help to double confirm on this.
MuSLiM~sOcIeTy A Shock at Sunway Pyramid Pizza Hut
Hello everyone. I have some interesting news. I was in Pizza Hut (Sunway Pyramid) yesterday and suddenly my friend showed me the bill. The bill contains normal things (number of person, bill. number and what is ordered).
But, what shocked me is that they had a space called "RACE". I guess since we were all wearing tudung, they labelled us as 0, which means MALAY. Later, when we went to pay… we had no service charge and no tax charge.
Still in shock, I peeped into another bill in the counter. In that bill, under the race space, it was labelled as C (which I guess means Chinese). That bill had service and tax charges!!!
I started investigating. One of my Sri Lankan friends was labelled as Indian and it seems she also had to pay service and tax charges a few weeks back.
What I’m wondering is that…does anyone know about this? I find it rather strange that they charge service and tax charge using race in Pizza Hut, out of all the places!
[My Desire Outcome]:
To warn everybody regarding the extra taxes that were imposed on non-Muslims…
If so, to boycott all Pizza hut outlet until further notice..
Thank you
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The following photographs of the order form (NOT the receipt) were also given as links on the site:
Even when I first saw this, I suspected it was a hoax at worst, or a mistaken customer at best. I said so in my response to Sai Bhanu akka’s comment, and echoed the suspiscions she had when she sent me the link. Note that pictures of the order form and not the receipt were posted, so we are unable to compare any prices. All the pictures prove is that Pizza Hut was, at the time, analysing the population of its customers by race.
The People’s Parliament was also alerted to this, and posted the same letter and photos, here. Some time later, Mr. Lawrence Ding, Senior General Manager of Pizza Hut Restaurants Malaysia Berhad, wrote a letter in response to those allegations, and it was posted on The People’s Parliament. I reproduce that letter as well, in full, below:
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As discussed earlier, please allow me to give you a little background to the history of Pizza Hut Malaysia and how we arrived to this point of frienzied allegation in very race sensitive Malaysia.
KFC Holdings Berhad bought over Cerebros in Dec 1995. It was then a Quick Service Restaurants concept serving buffets and quick meals. It was operated as a fastfood chain concept then.
Over the years, to remain relevant to our customers, Pizza Hut continued our journey of innovation to be a Casual Dining Restaurants Concept.
We have invested significantly since then to change our image from a Fast Food Chain Concept to a Enhanced Dining Chain Restaurant Concept.
About 2 years ago, we began to roll out the new Pizza Hut restaurant image. The assets, image, etc. were elevated. We also made significant changes to the Dine-In menu. It is a very significant change to our business strategy.
To make our investment viable in the long term, we conducted some research on all the Customers Touch Points namely, the Restaurant Assets, the Menu, the Uniform, etc.
Thus for about 3 months, we had our docket capture our customers’ group size and race. This was done purely to see who or which segment of the population respond positively or negatively to our menu items. It is also very important for our New Product Developement Team to develop menu items that will appeal to our customers.
We have had enough learnings from research and the exercise have stopped long ago.
I really hope, En Harris, that you will help promote the truth and publish this truth on your web, so that this lies will stop circulating….one day.
Your help is greatly appreciated.
Cheers and God Bless.
Lawrence Ding
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This wasn’t enough to satisfy many readers of The People’s Parliament. They posted skeptical comments, which prompted Mr. Ding to respond with a second letter:
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To all my firends, Truth Seekers, and Pizza Hut Supporters,
Thanks for all the responses on the above subject matter.
There are TWO issues raised on the blog and I will try to answer each one:
Allegation no 1: Pizza Hut Practices Discrimination in Service Charge According to Race
I categorically deny this allegation as it is NOT true and the allegation was a Hoax.
To put this allegation to rest, I personally would invite you to visit ANY Pizza Hut restaurants nearest to you and make a purchase to see if the above allegation is true.
Pizza Hut Malaysia is a Public Listed company and we are bound by law to collect the 5% sales taxes and we also have a 10% service charge on Table Service as all dining establishments do.
Should you decide to order a Take Away, there is no serivce charge for Take Away order.
As a good corporate citizen, we will never deviate from the law of our land.
Allegation no 2: Pizza Hut Practices race profiling
Again this allegation is Not True. We categorically deny it. We do not profile customers by race.
The only concession as stated in my earlier posting, was when we conduct a quick In-House research for internal use in 2006. Information on group size, ethnic mix was noted during the transitionary period of our Brand Strategy moving from a QSR Concept to a Enhanced Dine-In Concept, to see how our different concepts resonate with the different population segment.
We are in a multi ethnic, multicultural society. To obtain a fair representation of the market, a research must take into account these multi ethnic multi cultural factors. Otherwise, the research is considered biased. Talk to any research based person and you will understand.
Let me assure you that there is NO other intention other than the one stated above when we collected the data for a short 3 months period. That is why I say I categorically deny the allegation. We do not profile our customers.
Please visit Pizza Hut Restaurants nearest to you and you can check it out yourself.
Possible Background to the Hoax Mail
I truly believe the originator of the hoax mail (let us call him Mr. H) made a mistake by comparing his bill (most likely a Dine-In customer because it has a 10% service charge) versus another bill of someone (who happened to be Malay who purchased a Take-Away and his bill does not have the 10% service charge). So he (Mr. H) felt that he has been discriminated against to pay the extra 10% service charge compared to the Malay customer who actually ordered a Take Away (no service charge for a Take Away).
Mr. H ignorantly put the two together jumped to the conclusion and cried foul. He then decides to let the whole internet world know about his case agony.
This whole episode has now taken an unpleasant racial slant because people believed him with the picture of the dockets.
If the originator of the hoax mail or anyone who cared enough to propagate the viral mail, have just taken the little trouble to contact us or verify the suspicion, it would have saved the frustration and misperception of all of us.
I am the Senior General Manager of Pizza Hut and I am assuring all of you and your friends and all the Truth Seekers out there, that both the allegations are NOT TRUE and we categorically deny it.
We are also a franchised company from Yum! Restaurants International, another Public Listed company in the US. We are a good corporate citizen, law abiding and honest company. We will NOT violate the law of the land nor unnecessarily create any tension that will jeapordize our very own business.
Please visit any Pizza Hut Restaurant nearest to you and find our for yourselves if what I tell you is true.
Your help to just circulate this to your friends will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your attention
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Unfortunately for the poor Mr. Ding, this second response was still not enough to satisfy many readers, and he wrote his 3rd (and hopfully final) letter to try and put the issue to rest:
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Dear all Truth Seekers, Friends, and Fellow Bloggers,
I want to thank you all for the feedback and suggestions from the discussion on this matter.
1. I would say that the survey that caused the discomfort was probably done in a little hurry. More thought could have gone into it and probably a different approach should be considered.
2. I apologize for the discomfort caused.
3. Let me assure you again that it was never done with any evil or malicious intention as stated in my earlier postings.
4. To verify what I say, please visit any Pizza Hut Malaysia nearest to you and give me your response thereafter.
Thanks your understanding and I appreciate that you remain engaged with me on this matter.
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I hope this puts the matter to rest.
For those who are still skeptical, I’d suggest you conduct the following experiment. A bunch of you, each of a different race, go to a Pizza Hut Malaysia outlet. Let each person sit alone at separate tables. Everyone should order the exact same things. Once you’re done eating and paying, compare your receipts. Good experiments always produce repeatable results, so go ahead and try this at different Pizza Hut branches, on different days. Pass photos or scanned copies of the receipts to me. I’ll post them up here.
I’d do it myself except I’m in Singapore right now and it’s exam season for me. I’ll not be visiting a Malaysian Pizza Hut outlet anytime soon.
Cheers everyone!
PS: You can contact Mr. Lawrence Ding at lawrence.ding@pizzahut.com.my to pass him your comments or suggestions.
lol yea I hear about this hoax some time ago. I got it by email. At first I was suprised, but quickly realised it to be untrue, simply because even in our country its downright illeagal. But still you’d be suprised just how many stupid people are out there!
Though I do feel it was irresponsible of Pizza Hut to collect racial information without at least informing consumers of their actions and intents. I will be posting on the Peoples Parliment so that hopefuly Mr. Ding will read my opinion.
This is what I posted on the peoples parliment FYI.
Thank you Mr Ding for clearing up this whole issue. But I would like to say this to you.
This whole issue is completely and undeniably Pizza Hut’s fault. If pizza hut had publicly announced what they were doing, and their reasons for doing so, the whole issue could have been avoided.
Having collected such information without public knowledge or consent is downright unethical, and in my opinion is an infringment of our human, consumer, and constitutional rights, besides being borderline illeagal.
It is understandable thar the company hopes to attract more customers by providing goods and services that apeal to the many different races in Malaysia. I personally feel that this ‘Equal Oportunities’ approach should be adopted by more corporations. However, consumers have a right to know, and a right to choose ift hey want such personal and sensitive information to be collected.
Pizza Hut should rectify the matter by immediately issuing a public apology in major newspapers for their unethical actions, as well as explain to the public the reason why they did so. This is not only the right thing to do, but is also the only true way to restore the credibility and confidence of the public in Pizza Hut sdn bhd. Until then I will remain dissapointed with pizza hut and will think twice before patronising them.
TO EVERYONE ELSE: I think we should send a petition to parliment demanding that it be mandatory for all corporations to disclose to the public if they are collecting racial or other sensitive information, and also their aims and goals by doing so. Can we do this?
Race profiling of customers goes on in many countries and is not illegal. they just use it for statistics purposes.
Either the person who complained made a genuine mistake and had a bout of paranoia or he is trying to spread a hoax and threaten the stability of our nation. I say we should be wary of such ppl and hoaxes as any small thing can cause all hell to break loose in our fragile multiracial country.
Yes colecting ethnic data is very common and sok provided consent or at the very least notice is given.
Here in th UK too such data is collected but we are lways kept informed about it. For example the NHS decided that the ethnicity of patients be collected upon registration. this is supposedly mandatory nd on the form we have to choose from the list given. i wish to point out 2 things:
1. It was clearly stated that they wished to collect such info, and assuarences regarding quality of service to people of different ethnicities was clearly given
2. There was still the option to refus by selecting ‘I do not wish to give this inormation’
All Im saying is that its nt right that people dont even know that they are being racialy categorised. Some people feel very strongly about this, and they have the right to know, and thus the right to choose whether or not they wish to patronise the outet based on this.
Guys, more important, than whatever I’ve written below, go to
http://harismibrahim.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/project-irrelevant/
to find out about an initiative that’s been started regarding all this race, religion, sex to fill up in forms nonsense. And for those who have Facebook acounts, go join the cause Project Irrelevant. Here’s the link:
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/32424?recruiter_id=3058991&h=plw
Shriram, that’s exactly why Mr. Ding wrote his 3rd letter. Lots of people, apart from not believeing that the story was a hoax, were offended for the same reason you are.
I agree with you about consent or at least the courtesy of informing us. They made an HONEST mistake and apologised for it. They did so in Malaysia, the land where the government makes us fill up our race and religion in everything from school entrance forms to UPSR, PMR, SPM, and STPM forms… to housing loan forms or bank loan forms. We’ve been conditioned to continually give out such information without a second thought, even though it’s completely irrelevant in almost all the cases.
Cut the guy some slack. I think the way Mr. Ding has handled the whole matter here taking the time to explain everything and apologise is a good thing. More service outlets and shops should show the same courtesy, whether at the management level, or right on the ground.
We’ve got much bigger battles to fight. Let this slide… it’s not gonna happen again. Pizza Hut is still ok in my book.
I was in the dark for 2 months (no internet mah!) and just when I was abt to look for the continuation of your Religion article, lo and behold! Pizza hut! Yet another fantastic article! Nice job man!
Still waiting for the 3rd part of your Religion article, but hey, no hurries man. Lol.