A Person Was Arrested After Trying to Con GrabFood Rider of Free Food

Scammers seem to be really prevalent nowadays.

From masterminds who employ epidemic-related ruses to techies who craft multiple ‘Secret to Celebrity ***’s Riches’ articles, the scam profession is well-oiled and functional and seems utterly unruffled by such trivial stuff as a worldwide pandemic.

And it seems that like shady occult cults in school, they’re only getting more and more rampant.

As well as diversifying more and more.

And to prove my point? Well…

Look no further than this.

A Person Was Arrested After Trying to Con GrabFood Rider of Free Food

According to AsiaOne, a GrabFood deliveryman nearly got conned on a routine cash-on-delivery order, and only prevented the scam from happening with his quick wits and instinct.

On 4 August, an order was made for around $50 worth of food from Pizza Hut.

However, when deliveryman Syed Shafiq arrived at the designated unit at Blk 248 Compassvale Road, the ‘patron’ was nowhere to be seen.

As it turns out, the ‘patron’ had been a group of teenagers. And for the record…

They had no intention of fulfilling the cash-on-delivery part.

In an exchange over WhatsApp, the group claimed to have mistakenly picked the cash payment option, and said that they were unable to come to the door as they were “having [a] meeting”.

That must have been a large HDB.

Offering a tip as compensation, they said that they would transfer the amount to him once the meeting was over.

But Syed insisted that he would only fulfil the order once the transfer was made.

After the exchange, he left the food at the door on the recommendation of Grab’s customer service department, who said that he will be reimbursed.

But his spidey sixth sense simply forbade him from just walking away.

“I felt something fishy when people from [the opposite unit] kept on going out to throw rubbish at the chute,” he told AsiaOne.

“Suspected that these kids must have pulled this off. I waited near the chute to see who would collect and my suspicions were true.”

He started filming and managed to capture footage of two teenagers emerging from a different unit.

One of them looked around in a suspicious manner before taking the bag of food, while another seemed to be acting as a lookout.

Syed then called the police, but the two of them managed to vacate the scene before cops arrived.

According to the police, a 15-year-old has been arrested, and investigations are currently ongoing.

Practice Scepticism

Syed has warned fellow food delivery personnel not to fall for such tricks and advised them to practice scepticism in such cases.

“Wait till they show you a proof of PayNow or bank transfer, then deliver.”

Considering the prevalence of scammers in the current state, I doubt anyone would try to dispute Syed’s recommendation.

Grab has since responded to the issue, stating that it’s aware of the incident.

The affiliated user has also been banned from the service.

“We urge all users on our platform to treat one another with respect and kindness. Users who have repeatedly displayed errant behaviour may be suspended or banned from the platform.”

Not too long ago, another GrabFood rider has also related his story about a user who “ghosted” him at 1am:

To date, the Anti-Scam Centre of the Singapore Police Force has received more than 8,600 reports of scams in a year, where victims lost a total of $52 million.

In addition to e-commerce scams and online banking scams, there are also dating ploys better known as love scams.

You can watch these videos we’ve done in collaboration with the Singapore Police Force to know more about those scams (and please remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel!):