Category: Jeffrey Hyman

UPDATE 18. July 2024 The Pret subscription saga continues with Pret now scrapping the “free” drinks and trying to convince customers that it’s a good deal.

Oh well, Pret A Anger yet again! 😀

The Guardian: “Pret customers left fuming over end of free drinks”

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Also see my post on why I believe that scrapping the 5 drinks and changing the subscription might actually save Pret:
Is Sinclair Beecham Saving Pret?

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UPDATE end of April 2024, increased bad press towards the middle – bottom section.

Audio version via my podcast.

Audio version is NOT updated.

Some bad press on Pret recently which has increased since 2018, partly due to my blog and communicating with journalists, and also the customer deaths and injuries which has shook the public as everyone fell for Pret’s “ethical” facade.

Upfront, someone from WordPress is checking every post I put out as Pret must have complained about me. So, someone is always checking what I put out. As WordPress claim they honour free speech and free press, they found a compromise for Pret, and moved my blog into the “adult” section where they host porn sites. This means that every WordPress user who is logged in and does a search within the “reader” section on anything regarding Pret, can NOT find my blog.

Of course I raised this with WP but they only come with bogus reasons. I am still looking into moving my blog completely to a new host as I pay for my blog and have my free speech restricted within WordPress.

I want to post one article here from 2013 that I wish I read when I worked in Pret then. It remains my absolute favourite press article about Pret for several reason. One, it’s so bloody well researched and written. But mainly because it was written in 2013 when NO journalist dared to look deeper into, let alone write critically about Pret. It was a time of Pret’s high life and extreme favour with the public AND the press. Them days are over now! 6 years ago when I started to write publicly about Pret, hardly anyone believed me. Now it’s much more common knowledge and it’s time that the Pret facade is cracked substantially.

Timothy Noah remains hands-down my favourite journalist in regards to Pret.

“The Enforced Happiness of Pret A Manger”

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I list a few more great articles about the psychological “abuse” as I call it with other journalists articles in The Dangers of Emotional Labour and how it affects not only the mental health of workers, but morale, addiction, how it hurts even physically and financially.

Some bad press that are worth mentioning. There is more, but I keep it with the recent ones and try to keep it as short as possible (yeah, right!). Not sure if I’ll update, depending on the severity of a scandal Pret manage to create.

A recent article in the iPaper which I really recommend about the “master cup”. I’ve seen this during very busy coffee rushes even before the coffee subscription. The journalist is throwing a little word-play in there which you normally see with Daily Mail, Metro etc.:

“It’s bean nice but here’s why I finally quit my Pret subscription”

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UPDATE 12. April 2024

Pret are forced to refund “some genuine” customers after the new app keeps failing customers their drinks. BUT I explain how Pret WILL trick customers.

“Pret refunds subscribers after crackdown on free coffee backfires”

Link (Sidenote: Some news outlets STILL use the old image with “natural” food despite Pret being banned in 2018 from using this on their marketing).

If you’re affected you need to demand a FULL refund and AFTER the refund demand for your data to be deleted if you do not wish to have the subscription and/or app.

Pret will try EVERYTHING to NOT refund and keep customers bound to the subscription. Do NOT trust Pret!!!

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LINK

And, it’s funny how journalists feel “vindicated” to have known all along how Pret’s subscription is a rip off, ignoring that I’ve been writing this since Pret started the subin September 2020 😉

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»Oh, how delicious it is to be proven right.
A little under a year ago, I cancelled my Pret subscription after I was struck with the lightning bolt realisation that the chain was using my own caffeine addiction to rip me off. I haven’t had a coffee from Pret ever since.«

Link via Yahoo.

How delicious it is to be proven right? Tell me that since May 2018 😉

My “Pret’s Continued Coffee Subscription Rip-Off” post from January 2021 is still one of THE MOST read articles on my blog, especially by journalists. It emboldened journalists to more freely criticise Pret now compared to years ago where they were kissing up to Pret non-stop (except Timothy Noah).

And as usual, journalists MAINLY write a critical article about Pret when THEY themselves are affected as customers. Hardly independent journalism there. No care whatsoever what current and former staff say. Who cares about low-wage workers who are VITAL in customer servoce and the food and drnk these journalists put in their stomachs which these burnt-out, often depressed, some alcoholic workers TOUCH.

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Further regarding the coffee subscription, which is now Pret’s MAIN product and staff are penalised if they don’t push/mention it to customers:

“How the coffee subscription ruined Pret”

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I wrote a brief post about HOW Pret make profit via the subscription and the countless complaints from the early days of the subscription launch in September 2020:

“How Pret make profit via the subscription”

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One journalist is giving tips on how to make the most of a “bad” Pret subscription: 😀

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Link

A pretty sharp article on the quality of Pret:

“There’s one Pret A Manger sandwich that is still a masterpiece.
But while the high street favourite used to offer value and quality… now it does neither”

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In the next article, it’s always interesting when journalists say Pret is “becoming” a scandal when it comes to prices and their pockets. More and more customers stopped going to Pret due to the prices, yet, these same customers don’t give a toss that Pret IGNORED two customer deaths and multiple injuries UNTIL this became public. It’s always when it comes to money that people, even journalists are outraged.

“It’s about time Pret dropped its prices: they’re becoming a national scandal”… yeah, but only on 6 items to lure customers back in.

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An EXCELLENT article in the Financial Times which kickstarted the press writing more about Pret’s prices and quality. But this FT article really takes a good look at Pret’s claim on inflation etc.

“The Price problem with Pret”

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UPDATE 27. April 2024

The Spectator: “How Pret ate itself”, which is only one part in the article of a series of businesses in trouble, but Pret as usual serve as clickbait.

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Some snippets of the Spectator article:

»But the success story has gradually soured, one bad piece of PR following another.«

And mid to end of April 2024 The Telegraph whipped out a series of anti-Pret articles, leading Pret to send them thousands of pounds worth of food to appease the Telegraph’s “wrath”. JAB Holdings who own Pret also reshuffled and brought back RE-co-founder Sinclair Beecham, who already pumped money into Pret during the pandemic, to keep them afloat. Beecham is brought back supposedly to help expand Pret, although I have the suspicion that the REAL reason is because CEO Pano Christou simply doesn’t cope as he is already busy flying around the world expanding while UK shops are in shambles.

Detail on “Telegraph vs Pret”

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And Beecham’s return to Pret is like Rishi Sunak bringing back former PM David Cameron. And in typical Pret fashion, they say they bring Beecham back to expand Pret, while in reality Pret are in £700 million debt and Beecham has to save the day.

CONFLICTING MESSAGES

(Expansion)

Link

VERSUS (Values)

Link to The Caterer article.

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VERSUS (Debt)

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Link to MSN via Daily Mail.

Which one is it now?! But the mis-management by Pano Christou is obvious. Pret A Mis-Manager more like!

And while Sinclair Beecham returns, his buddy RE-co-founder Julian Metcalfe throws Pret and its CEO under the bus. 😀

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Julian Metcalfe is close buddy with former Pret CEO Clive Schlee whom he gave the CEO spot years ago. Schlee also owns half of itsu. My hunge is that Schlee and Metcalfe are is p!ssed off with how current CEO Pano Christou is sinking Pret. Yet, Schlee run Pret into an iceberg in the first place. NEVER forget how Schlee and his then right-hand man Pano Christou as UK Managing Director ignored TWO customer deaths and ober 20 injuries (that we know of) BEFORE this became public. We staff didn’t even know! And Pret went business as usual while selling themselves to the public as ethical, caring and trail blazers. Never forget that!

Do some research on their bullsh!t slogan “Be Kind – Be Generous – Be Honest” or “Pret, doing the right thing naturally” and many other bullcrap slogans.

And Julian Metcalfe being Julian Metcalfe, he runs his mouth in the press while ALSO having complaints on his itsu app on social media. 😀

There’s a saying in Germany that goes like, “Schadenfreude ist die beste Freude”.

And Karma’s a bitch!

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A few older reports:

There is more, but I keep it as short as possible.

Pret being naughty again and mess with staff data:

“Pret a Manger ordered to pay $677K to settle biometric lawsuit”

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Please note that the legal system in the USA is different to that in the UK. More staff sue Pret in the USA than the UK as the court system is more balanced and looks after the small guy more than the UK. And the payouts when staff win is bigger in the USA than the UK, therefore the lawyers take on cases more in the USA than UK. I speak form own experience when I went to Tribunal against Pret, but I withdrew when my dad died. I had no legal help as no-one was interested to take it on, due to the small payouts if I’d won.

One example on why a former staff member LOST in court in the UK is in my opinion unfair, but unfortunately the judge had a point:
99.9% Accepted Exploitation, so 0.01% Lost in Court.

For more lawsuits, especially regarding staff and wage theft, please see Pret A Manger Lawsuits and Settlements.

No wonder that hardly anyone sues in the UK.

And the recent scandal of a staff trapped in a walk-in freezer, leading to a £800,000 fine down from £1.6 million as Pret pled guilty early on. There’s a separate civil claim, but knowing Pret, they probably already settled out of court and had the staff sign a NDA as we don’t hear anything anymore.

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I was contacted as I often am by Pret staff who leak issues to me that I leak to the press. One such contact was after Pret for the 2. time in 2022 delayed paying staff under dodgy reasons. I completely forgot at the time that Pret did that before, in around 2012 when I worked at Pret. I even went around to my colleagues offering to lend them money as some became panicked to not be able to pay bills. I was a team leader on a bit higher pay and had saving. LITTLE did I know that this was NOT a payroll mistake, but can see now that this is a pattern.

And this was under former CEO Clive Schlee, the “Ronald McDonald” clown of Pret who’s job it was to fool everyone with a big friendly smiley facade. Almost ALL journalists were in Pret’s pocket believing Pret to be such an ethical company, including the Guardian’s Sarah Butler, who has now woken up since I tag her in or email her with Pret issues.

But Clive Schlee used to follow her on Twitter and she was fooled by him like everybody. I guess he thought that if he as the big cheese of Pret follows certain journalists, he’d flatter them with his following.

And then, little me came along and told a different story of the real Pret.

I WISH I kept the email from 2012 that the payroll staff sent to all shops apologizing and even saying something like “I never felt so sick to my stomach” close to vomiting to have forgotten or made a mistake to pay THOUSANDS of already low-wage workers!

And this reflects on shop managers who always cheat towards the end of a quarter to get more bonus. They cheat especially with staff hours. EVERY week I had to check my pay if I was paid the correct hours worked. I had to constantly go to my managers shop after shop that they forgot an hour here or two hours there. This is NOT a mistake! Do this every week to several staff and you see how it adds up. It’s another form of wage theft hard to prove as they claim to have “forgotte” to pay the hour here and there.

I had a spreadsheet at home and noted down how long I worked to the 15 minutes! Many don’t do that and don’t realise how they are cheated out of days, even weeks of the amount hours over years. Pret also like to keep the first week wages worked when people leave. When you start at Pret, your first pay comes after week two. They did that to me keeping a week’s pay, but I noticed only a year later.

Pret keep staff so busy and burnt-out that staff have no nerve or strength to 1. check their hours and 2. chase after it. Again, scumbags of a company!

To my knowledge from own experience in 2012-ish and then via the contact of TWO pay delays within a few months, this is now the THIRD time Pret “borrow” money from staff! This happens close to the end of the quarter where the higher up execs get their brownie points which later translates into millions in bonus. The more money they save towards the quarter, the more bonus they get. These scumbags!

I vividly remember the panic of some team members who lived from pay ceck to pay check hving bills tp pay and/or kids to feed, and me going around to offer money. I was so naive thinking it was a one-off genuine mistake! Absolute scumbags Pret are! And I say it bluntly, Pano Christou is mis-managing Pret big time. He has NO excuse to mishandle so many issues as he’s been with Pret over 20 years. But to me it’s just evidence how bad they really are and it now shows what I’ve been writing since 2018. Pressure, scandals (customer deaths & injuries) and crisis (pandemic, cost of living) always reveals how incapable, even careless and arrogant Pret are.

They got away with customer deaths, they feel invincible now. But price hikes are never forgiven by people. When it comes to money, everybody screams!

Part of the DM I received and emailed CEO Pano Christou with angry words, openly copying journalists in including Sarah Butler from the Guardian who then reported on it:

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Sarah Butler then investigated further and wrote the following article:

“Pret CEO handed near-£4m bonus in year staff pay was cut
Pano Christou also given 27% salary rise in 2021 as chain took more than £50m in government support”

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I write about Sarah Butler in my post: Sarah Butler from the Guardian and my Blog.

I’m not kidding, but i literally teared up when I saw Loose Women presenter Nadia Sawalha give Pret a stern rebuke on her Instagram account. And she has half-a-million followers on Instagram, and more followers on Twitter/X than Pret UK and Pret USA combined have. She has a voice!

She ranted about how it is unacceptable for Pret to cut wages during the pandemic of already low wage staff during “war” time (pandemic). She made a mistake though saying that staff who get £8.91 an hour (in 2021) and Pret wanting to cut more. What happened was that as Pret always pay about 50p above the minimum wage to appear generous in the public, staff earned more than minimum wage but the pay was then cut down TO £8.91 national minimum wage (2021). She just mis-spoke there. But the point stands. And her question if the big guns of Pret also take a cut, I knew they wouldn’t take a cut, but it has been answered a year later by above Sarah Butler’s article.

I gave it its own YouTube slide and watch it sometimes when I despair at “famous” or influential people being silent on how Pret behave, especially when it comes to staff.

She was the only celebrity who spoke out! I watched this again today and still keep tearing up *sniff sniff*! I’m not a hugger by nature but could give her a big hug through the screen! Such mic-drop rebuke! To have such a prominent voice on the side of low-wage staff is nothing short of powerful and kind! 💪 💚

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And of course now in 2024 CEO bonus is £5 million and upwards, plus year on year pay-rise. CEO Pano Christou who’s with Pret over 20 years and was Clive Schlee’s right-hand man, has as his MAIN priority to double Pret in size by 2026 as instructed by the owners, the second richest family in Germany, the Reimanns under JAB Holdings in tax-haven Luxembourg.

But get ready, in April 2024 the government will raise minimum wage again and Pret will again make a big PR move to claim to be so generous to raise wages again. They never mention that they have no choice but ti raise the pay as they’d be breaking the law paying under minimum wage. Give it until March before you see a massive PR stint again.

Christou wants to build his name and legacy as having expanded Pret worldwide while having his head in the sand that Pret’s gone downhill so much so more negative press reports. Also 74% of customers on Trustpilot (1&2 star reviews combined) disapprove of Pret on a variety of issues, many having sworn to never set foot inside Pret again.

74% unhappy customers as of February 2024.

The following review I screenshot is from mid 2023 and is just one of many. For people with visual impairment, quote, it starts of in all caps:

“PLEASE DO NOT USE THE APP, it logs you out and locks your banking information for the subscription”.

End of quote.

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Or data breach, quote:

“Mishandling Customer Data

I had a subscription for 3 months over the summer. The products are poor quality & not as described. The customer service also rude.
Due to the poor service I asked Pret to delete my data in accordance with GDPR right to be forgotten.
An organisation has 30 days to comply.
After 6 weeks Pret still not deleted my data even after a warning from the ICO.
Avoid this company like the plague!”

End of quote.

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And many more along those lines.

And knowing Pret, they might recruit people to start writing positive reviews to get the numbers up.

It’s also alleged that Pret had someone change the Wikipedia entry to delete the original founder Jeffrey Hyman’s name from Wikipedia.

I write about this in my Julian Metcalfe post:

Julian Metcalfe’s Family Line and how I chased him off Twitter

Last but not least, and even though it’s an older article, but I’m proud to have worked with Mike Powell on two of his BBC reports. He is the only journalist for a major news putlet who mentioned my blog.

The first article:

“Pret customers complain about the drink subscription deal“

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And how Pret further take from staff and customers, especially under the “charity” umbrella:

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How Pret take from staff to do PR to fool customers. <—

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Also, see my recent Open Letter to Tristan Tate, former Pret Barista and Brother of Andrew Tate after he private messaged me.

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I worked at Pret A Manger and survived systemic workplace bullying during bereavement that involved HR, the top leadership, HQ and even the now “retired” former CEO Clive Schlee. I declined 4 settlement offers if I am silent about my ordeal. But I rather speak out to help others. For an overview of important blog entries of my experience with Pret, please visit “My Ordeal with Pret A Manger”. The little arrow to the right next to each heading will lead directly to the post.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret and What shop MANAGERS & HQ staff say about Pret incl. CEO Pano Christou.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review as well as mentioned by the BBC.

Please also see the MEDIA page for more.

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Thank you for reading/listening

©2017 – Present: expret.org

Interview:

(Please be aware that the player shows 0:00 as WordPress sometimes “messes” with my blog. Just press play or go straight to the interview on Adam’s page).

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