News

Chicken Rice Stall Allegedly Made To Refund Customer Despite Correct Order; Turns Out They’re Not Alone

2021-09-21 , 2:48 pm

With the pandemic still ongoing and the number of cases increasing each day, most of us choose to order in using the various delivery platforms we have and just stay in the comfort of our own homes.

While we get to stay safe, there are some situations where we notice there may be items missing from the order once it has been delivered.

Most of the time, the missing food item will be refunded, or in some cases, re-delivered.

While this is appreciated by most people who are genuine, some people know of this loophole and choose to take advantage of it instead.

Customer Reports Missing Item, But Stall Refutes Claim

The wife of the Newton Hainanese Chicken Rice stall owner took to Facebook to express her unhappiness after Foodpanda allegedly made them refund a customer over the claim of missing items without any prior communication with the stall.

Image: Facebook (Newton Hainanese Chicken Rice)

According to her post, a customer had said that he only received a packet of rice even though the couple was very sure that they had packed the items (two packets of rice and one packet of half chicken) correctly.

They remembered this order clearly because they had initially remarked how the customer was able to offset the full credit of $20.50 through the use of a voucher.

She also remembered handing the entire bag of food to the delivery rider, with the latter accepting the bag with one hand on the handle, and one hand on the base.

The fact that he had to do that proved that the bag weighed more than just one packet of rice, she pointed out.

No Investigation Done

The wife said in her post that she was annoyed that Foodpanda did not carry out any investigations regarding the missing items to confirm the validity of the customer’s claims, and instead proceeded to refund him with no questions asked.

Since the couple treated Foodpanda like a business partner, they expected Foodpanda to communicate with them first whenever such problems arise.

This would have allowed them to at least clarify their side of the story and show what really happened.

Unfortunately, as this was the second time something similar has occurred, the woman decided to express her disappointment with the platform over Facebook.

Stall Gets Reimbursement But Questions Are Left Unanswered

After the wife sent in a complaint via their restaurant portal platform, they received an email from Foodpanda saying that they have been reimbursed the full amount that was initially disputed.

The wife questioned why there was no further action from Foodpanda in terms of asking for proof.

She was also unsure who would bear the cost.

Since she still had many questions that were left unanswered, she decided that it was best if she sent in another email asking Foodpanda to clarify.

Such Refunds Happen More Often Than One Would Think

Unfortunately, Newton Hainanese Chicken Rice stall is not the only one that has allegedly experienced such “wrongful” refunds without prior investigations.

A comment under the woman’s post also revealed that another owner of an eatery has encountered a similar situation.

However, instead of pursuing the matter and getting their rightful reimbursement back, they decided to let it go.

Charles Ng, the boss of Lean Bento, also revealed that he has had his fair share of dodgy refund requests over the years.

In order to dispute the refunds, he showed photographic proof of the bentos prepared and even offered to share CCTV proof to substantiate the fact that all bentos were assembled correctly by his staff without any item missing.

He initially started taking photos of the bentos as part of the company’s own internal quality control, but later realised that it came in handy to refute any of such “wrongful” refund requests.

In order to solve such situations and prevent customers from taking advantage of the system, Mr Ng asked that delivery platforms look into their refund policies and review them.

You can read her Facebook post in full below:

Foodpanda’s Response

According to MS News, foodpanda said they give customers the “benefit of the doubt” and would fulfil all refund requests if able to.

Merchant partners who want to dispute customers claims are welcome to do so through the foodpanda team.

Should their investigations reveal inaccurate claims, merchant partners will be given the full reimbursement.