Covid 19 coronavirus: Hell Pizza asked customer to hand over PIN number

Hell Pizza have apologised after a customer was asked to hand over her PIN number in order to pay for her order, after the popular chain instituted a "100 per cent contactless" payment system across New Zealand.

The Christchurch woman was visiting family in Rangiora and tried to call the Rangiora store to order pizza for the drive back home. She was told she would need to pay via Paywave but refused.

The woman told the Herald that she didn't like to use Paywave after an earlier incident at another business that saw her inadvertently pay for another customer's order.

Told that Hell were treating all stores nationwide as if they were under level 3 restrictions, the woman was then instructed to write her PIN down so that staff could process an Eftpos transaction.

She refused to hand over her PIN and instead cancelled her order.

"We're not in level 3 down here and everyone else accepts Eftpos," she told the Herald, adding that she didn't often treat herself to pizza, had been looking forward to it all day and that the experience had put her off visiting Hell Pizza.

"Why put everybody into that Auckland situation?" she asked. "Not everybody has Paywave".

"When you get your PIN at the bank you sign a thing to say that you won't give out your pin number.

"If money went missing out of my account...the bank are going to say 'well you gave them your PIN'."

Ben Cumming, CEO of Hell, told the Herald in a statement that the incident stemmed from an individual staff member's mistake and was not company policy.

"We are aware that an individual staff member breached Hell policy by mistakenly suggesting that a customer could provide their PIN over the phone, in response to their complaint about using contactless payment methods," Cumming said.

"Thankfully the PIN was not shared, and the order was not processed. There was no malicious intent, and no harm was done, and while this is an isolated incident, we have been in contact with the store this morning to remind them of the correct procedures. "

Cumming confirmed that the popular chain had chosen to implement level 3 restrictions across all of its 75 stores nationwide "to protect the safety and wellbeing of our staff and customers".

"We are only accepting contactless delivery and pickup orders while in level 3 restrictions to ensure 100 per cent contactless service, which means that for the time being Hell customers need to either pre-pay for their order with credit or debit card or use Paywave when picking up their order," he said.