Letter: Food Delivery Companies Should Lead The Way As Reliable Services During Pandemic

Food Delivery Companies Must Step Up During Covid-19 Pandemic

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Hi, I am Lynn and I wish to comment on the incident where a woman was unable to get a refund for her cancelled order.

I can fully understand the frustration of Ms Farhana as I went through exactly the same situation as her last year even before the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the past, I used to pay for all my orders from foodpanda using my debit card until the day when my order was abruptly cancelled by the delivery driver.

Instead of calling or messaging me, he simply cancelled my order. In fact, the phone was just right in front of me while I was waiting for my delivery.

But foodpanda claimed via email that the rider did try to contact me and they said with regrets that they could not refund my payment despite me not receiving my order and paying in advance.

I was really mad at that time. Eventually, after a few heated emails, they finally relented and refunded me, not forgetting to tell me that it was out of goodwill and this will be the only allowance they are making this time specially for me.

I find that rather ironic as I paid for my food, did not receive it because of the rider and now that I am finally able to get my refund back, it’s like they are pitying me and it’s no fault of them or their rider.

Ever since this incident, I have never paid in advance for my food delivery from foodpanda because once bitten, twice shy.

However, the same unfortunate incident of the rider being unable to find the customer’s location happened to me again.

Only this time, I did not pay in advance but was prepared to pay cash upon delivery.

In fact, for the past few months, I have been ordering from foodpanda for our family’s lunch, dinner and supper almost every day because we do not cook and we dare not go out of the house because of the pandemic.

On 1 Jun, we received our lunch from the foodpanda rider when we ordered Nasi Lemak from Crave. But at night, another delivery rider simply cancelled our dinner order claiming that my address is wrong.

How absurd is this?

After my order was cancelled, I ordered from foodpanda again from another restaurant and the food was delivered in less than half an hour.

When I gave feedback to the rider about the other rider not being able to find my place, he said “no, your place is so easy to find”.

Regarding this sudden cancellation of my food delivery, I wrote emails to foodpanda hoping that they can investigate their driver as to whether they really can’t find the location.

Though I did not lose any money this time, I wasted time waiting for my food and ended up with few options as most of the restaurants are closed after 9.30pm.

I hope that you can explore more on this issue and I strongly believe that there are many innocent victims out there who have no way to bring out their grievances when they’re caught in such a situation.

At a time like that, shouldn’t everyone be kind and considerate to the people around us when everyone in this world is suffering in one way or another during this pandemic?

Shouldn’t foodpanda as a big organization be the 1st to lead the way as a reliable and responsible delivery provider for Singaporeans?

Lynn Chua

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Featured image by MS News.