Reporting verbs challenge

[yuratea]

Hi ! Today there was a lesson on BBC Learning English Facebook page about reporting verbs. Teachers told to use " tell to sb" instead of "said sb" when reporting speech. A challenge was given and it wasn't difficult to see that the wrong sentence was C:
REPORTING VERBS CHALLENGE
Which sentence is wrong?
a) CORRECT: She TELLS ME she loves chicken sandwiches. (The speaker is talking to ‘me’.)
b) CORRECT: She SAYS she loves chicken sandwiches. (We don’t know who the speaker is talking to.)
c) WRONG: She SAYS ME she loves chicken sandwiches. (We don’t use ‘me’ with the reporting verb ‘say’.)

But then one learner commented: "Yes, we don’t use ‘me’ with the reporting verb ‘say’, but we can use 'TO ME, like this : She SAYS TO ME she loves chicken sandwiches. "
Teachers there rarely pay attention to learners' comments. So, I got lost and now I don't know if it is wrong or it is correct to use "says to me". Can you help me? I'm really curious :)

[Alan]

Yes, 'say smth. TO smb.' is also grammatical.