A Trip to Burger King May Cost $700.

I wrote the following letter to Burger King Corporate:

I'm writing because of a very poor experience with the Sauk Rapids Burger King. My wife left her phone at this location by accident. When I called to confirm if it was there, they said it was. We went back to retrieve the device. When my wife received it, it was completely soaked. When she asked about why the phone was soaked, the manager said that they had cleaned it off as it had ketchup on it. The phone was malfunctioning as soon as we received it back from the location. 

I asked  the manager on duty if they were willing to pay for repairs of the phone. She said it's not their fault that the phone was covered in ketchup and mustard. 

At this point, I'm very upset with how the store handled this incident. It's common knowledge that you never submerge nor spray an electronic device. Since the store is unwilling to correct the issue, I'm asking for corporate to take care of it. 

Here's the full story. 

My wife, kids, and I had just come from church. We were going to see a house for rent in about an hour and needed to feed our children. As it turns out, the Burger King in Sauk Rapids was on the way. We decided to go there since it also had a play land. 

The food was sub-par during our visit (though, I generally prefer Burger King to Mc Donalds). At least they were still running their nuggets special. When we left, my wife accidentally left her phone behind. 

About an hour passed before we realized the phone was missing. When we realized the last place it was used was at the Burger King, we called them back to find out if it was there. They said that they had they found the phone in the garbage. The likelihood of throwing a working phone in the trash is pretty slim. While we didn't believe their story, we took in good faith that they were at least taking care of it. 

When my wife went into the restaurant to retrieve her phone, the staff gave her a soaking wet phone. She inquired what happened. The employee said "We heard it ringing and found it in the bottom of the trash can. The person who found it cleaned it off and dried it in the bathroom."

When the employee turned the phone over, my wife noticed that the phone was malfunctioning. My wife pulled the phone back off and found that it was soaked. 

I then called the store to speak with a manager and find out what happened. The manager said that the phone was found in the garbage and that the store would not accept responsibility for the cleaning nor damaging of the phone. Her words were specifically "It's not my fault you threw your phone in the trash" before abruptly hanging up. 

All I want is for the damaged phone to be repaired. At this point, we have the phone in a bag of rice as recommended by ERG Electronics Repair Shop. If the phone is still not functioning, we'll have to take additional steps. 

It's sad to see that Burger King can be so disrespectful to their customers after damaging a customer's personal property.


UPDATE - 2015 08 10 1107
I received a call from John K at Red King Foods. He said that the store reported the phone as found in the trash can in the play area. They said that it was swimming in pop.

There are 2 issues with that claim.

1) The "I got wet" sticker is still white.
2) There's no sugar residue from pop on the device

John is asking that we have ERG contact him regarding the repair of the phone.

UPDATE - 2015 08 19
ERG was able to repair the phone. It's great to see that it's working. Now time to get ERG to send their full report to BK showing that they lied about the incident.