27YO Man Cheated Over $700 Free Food By Ordering Them To Neighbours’ Homes, Gets 1-Week Jail

Here’s a hack to get free food if you’re in the mood for some expensive dim sum.

Order food delivery, deliver them to a neighbour’s home that you know do not have anyone at home, then steal it after the rider is gone.

Of course, seeing as how nothing in the world comes for free (including Goody Feed content so please don’t engage your adblocker), there’s a drawback to this hack.

You could get into trouble like this guy we’re going to talk about next.

27YO Man Cheated Over $700 Free Food By Ordering Them To Neighbours’ Homes, Gets 1-Week Jail

For almost three weeks, a 27-year-old man, Leonard Tan Tong Han, utilised the aforementioned hack to get free food from GrabFood & Foodpanda.

The amount of food he ate adds up to over $700.

According to CNA, his offences took place between 25 Feb and 14 Mar.

Tan would select “Cash on Delivery” when he made his orders and send them to neighbours’ homes just above or below him.

Before the food arrives, he’ll message the riders, telling them that he’ll make payment via PayLah! or PayNow instead, so would they please hang the food outside the door?

When they leave, he’ll creep his way to the door and take the food away.

Needless to say, he didn’t make any payments.

Made Many Fake Accounts For His Scheme

Having just one account repeatedly not making payments would probably get him caught quickly.

So he figured that creating multiple fake accounts with random phone numbers and equally fictitious names like Samuel Leong would let him get away scot-free.

How He Got Caught

It seems that Tan has expensive tastes.

On 8 Mar, Tan ordered S$91.59 worth of food from a restaurant in Gangsa Road via the Foodpanda app.

His alias then was “Samuel Leong”.

Living on the 14th floor, Tan arranged for the delivery to be sent to a neighbour located on the 13th floor.

In the remarks for the order, he asked the Foodpanda rider to leave the food above the shoe rack, using his kids as an excuse to be away.

“Leave food above shoe rack … picking kids up from hospital. Just sms me your paynow number I will paynow and whatsapp you.”

So the Foodpanda rider did as instructed, and even sent a photo to confirm the delivery.

Suspicions

After a while, the food delivery rider got suspicious.

He didn’t receive any reply to his photo, so he went back to the unit.

The food that he had delivered was missing from the shoe rack, and when asked, the owner of the unit confirmed that he has not made any food delivery orders.

The neighbour also told him that similar incidents have been happening in the same block.

So the rider immediately reported the case to Foodpanda. It was also reported that the neighbour had made a police report earlier on 25 Feb over two pizzas sent to his home.

And the rest, they say, is history.

7-Day Jail

Tan was charged with four counts of cheating and had an additional nine charges taken into consideration during the sentencing.

On 17 Sep 2020, the judge sentenced Tan to 7 days in jail and allowed him to start his sentence on 1 Oct 2020.

For each count of cheating, he could’ve been jailed for up to three years, fined, or both.

Foodpanda and GrabFood suffered $718.54 losses in total, and Tan has reportedly repaid both companies in full.

Moral of the story? 

There’s really no free meal in this world.

If you’re really hungry and you can’t afford a $91 meal, just go down to the cai png stall nearby and eat.

Trust me, the cai png uncle’s going to love you to bits for it.

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