Man orders food from restaurant 1km away, receives it 2 hours later

Despite expecting around a 40-minute wait for his food, Tai KX ended up waiting a whopping two hours.

To add salt to his wound, the delivery rider couldn't be bothered to send the food up to his unit and instead left the food order at the void deck of his HDB block in Sengkang. 

Upset, Tai took to Facebook on Monday (Jan 16) to rant about the rider's behaviour. 

On Sunday (Jan 15) at around 6pm, the 36-year-old man ordered food for his family from Boon Tong Kee at Compass One via Foodpanda.

The distance from that mall to his block is just 1km away.

The app said the food would take about 40 minutes to arrive, and the food collection time was 6.53pm. That delivery time also stated that the rider would take three minutes to reach Tai's location. 

However, despite the app indicating that the food had already been picked up from Compass One, the GPS location revealed the rider was elsewhere. 

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Out of courtesy, Tai said he messaged the rider to check on his order, adding that this was done "without [him] being hostile". 

In response, the rider claimed he had "stack orders" and told Tai to wait. 

However, 30 minutes later, the rider's location, strangely, had not moved on the app.

Frustrated and hungry, Tai clicked on the help link on the Foodpanda app and was directed to an agent.

But even after speaking to five agents, he said he was unable to find a solution and only received system auto-generated responses as well as an offer for a $4 voucher. 

Around 8pm, Tai messaged the rider again and the rider admitted that he had five orders and was juggling orders on two delivery apps, hence the delay. 

"I've been monitoring the [rider's] GPS since around 7.15pm, it's very clear that the rider collected my food and went to another place to wait and collect food," said Tai. 

Food left at void deck

Finally, at around 8.18pm, the delivery rider told Tai that his food had arrived. 

But instead of sending it up to Tai's unit, the rider told him: "Left at void deck table go take." 

"I was amazed by such behaviour," Tai said, adding that the rider was a "coward". 

Speaking to AsiaOne, Tai said that while he knows the life of a delivery rider is tough, he felt this rider was too unreasonable. 

"I do understand riders work hard to earn a living. Delay a bit can understand. But the rider's GPS location monitoring is very obvious. [He was] not being understanding enough to the customer and [delayed my order] for 1 hour 20 mins," Tai told us. 

"If the rider delivered [the food] to my unit, I wouldn't scold the rider. But by leaving the food at the void deck, it's really ridiculous." 

Tai also told AsiaOne that he did not report the incident to Foodpanda because he felt like it was "useless" and the delivery company would likely "ignore this matter". 

Rider given warning: Foodpanda

In response to AsiaOne's queries, Foodpanda said it has given the rider a warning for not following the standard delivery protocols, which include delivering customers' orders to the address specified in the app.

The company has also contacted the customer to resolve the issue.

Foodpanda also explained that delivery partners are freelancers. Hence, they can make deliveries for more than one platform if they wish to.

Taking on deliveries from different platforms at the same time, however, can cause delays in delivering orders to customers and the company advises delivery riders against doing this.

"We value the trust that our customers place in us and our delivery riders in ensuring that their food and grocery orders are delivered timely and accurately," said Foodpanda.

ALSO READ: Rider begs wrong recipients who ate his $28 food delivery at Funan mall

melissateo@asiaone.com

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