Food delivery has made its way into our lives as a modern-day convenience. We no longer feel the need to head out to our favourite restaurants, as they can now deliver to our doorstep. A few simple taps and clicks, and a speedy delivery ensure good quality food at affordable and even discounted prices. However, the online food delivery space has also had its share of controversies and scams. Many people take advantage of its app-only delivery model and find loopholes in the system to use it to their benefit. Recently, one such food delivery scam taking place on the popular application Zomato has been unearthed. A user named Vinay Sati took to LinkedIn to share his experience:
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In the post, the entrepreneur Vinay Sati narrated the scam happening on Zomato which 'gave him goosebumps'. He said he had ordered some burgers from the popular burger chain, Burger King, through the Zomato application. He made the delivery and paid online for his order. "As soon as the delivery boy came after 30-40 minutes, he told me, sir, don't pay online next time. I wonder why, I asked why, brother? He said that next time when you will order food worth INR 700-800 through COD you only have to pay INR 200 for that," revealed Sati.
Thus, the delivery boy was suggesting that he could pay cash for the food, while the delivery boy would say that the customer refused to take the food. "I will show it to Zomato that you have not taken the food but will also give you the food you ordered,' Aap bas mujhe INR 200-300 de dena aur INR 1000 ke khane ke maje lena (You pay me INR 200-300, and enjoy food worth INR 1,000)," explained Sati in his post. "Deepinder Goyal ji, now don't say that you don't even know that this is happening," he questioned the Zomato CEO. "First of all, I would have enjoyed this offer. Or else would have exposed this scandal. And being an entrepreneur, I chose the second option," he concluded.
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Zomato's food delivery scam will leave you shocked. Photo: Twitter
The post about the Zomato scam soon grabbed plenty of eyeballs, garnering likes and views by the thousands. "While this is something that Zomato has to look into, isn't it so heartwarming and amazing to see customers support businesses instead of just trying to avail product & services at a discount," said one user in the comments. "This, unfortunately, happens with uber and ola drivers too - cancel the ride and pay me directly, will give you 10% off," said another user.
Meanwhile, Zomato's CEO Deepinder Goyal also responded to the viral LinkedIn post about the food delivery scam. "Aware of this. Working to plug the loopholes," he wrote in the comments section.