In an incident worthy of Border Security, an Australian woman has been slugged more than $2,500 by Customs for a half-eaten Subway sandwich.
19-year-old Jessica Lee was on her way back from Greece via Singapore when, hungry and jet-lagged, she picked up a chicken footlong from the airport Subway. After finishing half, she stashed the rest in her purse for later.
Unfortunately, the sandwich came back to bite her when it came time to go through Australian Customs – because, when officials found she’d failed to declare the chicken and lettuce (both considered biosecurity risks) on her incoming passenger card, she was hit with 12 penalty units, or a fine of $2,664.
“I thought the little declaration thing you do is for your carry-ons and your luggage, so I didn’t tick chicken and I didn’t tick lettuce,” she said on her TikTok channel.
To add to her problems, Jessica had quit her job to go on her Greek holiday and lamented that she had rent to pay – and worse, her family is now calling her “Subway Girl” – but fortunately for her, Subway heard of her plight. While the sandwich giant couldn’t pay her fine, it did send her a gift card good for $2,664 worth of subs as well as some branded merchandise.
“If there’s a lesson to be learnt from all of this, it’s to always finish a Footlong in one sitting. We wanted to send one of our biggest fans a little thank you for Eating Fresh. We’re sure it will cover all her chicken and lettuce needs,” Subway Australia told Food and Wine.
Here’s hoping she can pay that rent in sandwiches…
