Recently, screenshots of the Zomato app featuring several restaurants selling only a single dish went viral online. Most of these restaurants featured locations in Chandigarh and sold only one dish with a vague name, such as 'Naughty Strawberry', 'Blue Adventure' and 'Citrus Punch'. The high prices of the dishes also raised suspicions about whether these items were really food or not. Many social media users believed these were fake restaurant names using the app for drug delivery or money laundering. Zomato has now taken action against such suspicious restaurants and delisted them from their food delivery application.
What's going on with Zomato in Chandigarh? 🤔
Fake ‘restaurants' offering just ONE dish at absurd prices, with nonexistent addresses. Something really shady is cooking on @zomato@DgpChdPolice
Anyone else noticed this? 👀 #Zomato#Chandigarh#ZomatoGatepic.twitter.com/wbBvCrqsPV— nitish anand (@nitish_an) November 18, 2024
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Taking to their official X handle, Zomato wrote, "We have noticed social media conversations around single-dish restaurants listed on Zomato. We have identified all such restaurants that were potentially fraudulent and have delisted them from our platform. To solve this more comprehensively, we have also investigated all other restaurants which have a very limited menu on Zomato and might have listed prohibited items or worked around a way to list prohibited items."
Elaborating on things that are not allowed to be sold on Zomato, the post continued, "As per our policy, all restaurants listed on Zomato need to have a FSSAI license and we also actively block items such as alcohol, cigarettes/cigars/vapes from being listed on our platform. However, the restaurants highlighted were able to game our checks by using generic food names such as, 'Naughty strawberry', 'Merry Berry'. We have further strengthened our fraud checks to proactively identify such cases to avoid similar incidents in the future."
We have noticed social media conversations around single-dish restaurants listed on Zomato.
We have identified all such restaurants that were potentially fraudulent and have delisted them from our platform. To solve this more comprehensively, we have also investigated all other…— zomato (@zomato) November 20, 2024
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While some X users appreciated the update, others demanded more stringent actions against such fraudulent restaurants.
"Good to see an update from your side on the issue which was raised by some users," an X user wrote.
Another questioned, "So you didn't verify the FSSAI license of those restaurants?"A third added, "I don't think they (Zomato) even do a visit to the restaurant/cloud kitchen. Must be fully online."
An X user remarked, "If these restaurants were selling prohibited items, then you need to get the authorities involved immediately; simply "delisting" is obviously not enough."