Finally, Swiggy, Zomato under scanner after surge in consumer complaints

The government has asked food apps to improve grievance redressal; provide breakup of all charges — delivery, packaging, surge pricing; dial 1915 to register your complaint

Taking cognizance of rising consumer complaints against food delivery apps like Swiggy and Zomato, the Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) has asked major e-commerce food business operators (FBOs) to provide the steps they are taking to address consumer complaints and a proposal to improve the grievance redressal mechanism by end-June 2022.

While the FBOs took off with huge discounts and a focus on hygiene and delivery time around 2015, with growing usage, customers across cities that are increasingly dependent on such FBOs for food, have been facing problems with surge pricing, huge delivery charges, lack of hygiene and supply checks (it has become common to see restaurants in cities like Chennai to pack food from nearby stalls when needed), and gross misbehaviour.

Supplying non-vegetarian dishes to vegetarian customers, inordinate delay and surge pricing from restaurants hardly 100 meters away are some of the other complaints among customers. Sunil K, who works in an MNC in Chennai, told MDDTimes, “I have personally seen a roadside stall near Thiruvanmiyur that supplies to both Swiggy and Zomato indulging in unethical practices. One day, I saw him packing vadas from nearby stalls because his did not have enough. Offline, the customers would have definitely protested, especially because the restaurant mentions it is “pure veg”, health concerns apart.

A few years ago, a video of a Zomato delivery person having a part of food meant for customers and packaging it again went viral. Similarly, several videos of irate customers misbehaving with delivery guys have also surfaced regularly, highlighting the importance of a better grievance mechanism in food delivery, especially since most of the orders are prepaid.

MDDTimes — 22% of complaints against Swiggy are about deficiency in services

In a meeting chaired by Secretary, DoCA, Rohit Kumar Singh with major e-commerce FBOs, it was noted that over the past one year, over 3,631 grievances have been registered on the National Consumer Helpline (1915) against Swiggy and 2,828 against Zomato, with about a fourth mentioning deficiency in services. Only a minuscule of customers file a complaint against such operators.

During the meeting, major issues raised by the consumers were discussed including veracity of the amount of delivery and packing charges and the reasonability of such charges, disparity between the price and quantity of food items shown on the platform and actually offered by the restaurant, inconsistency in the delivery time, and absence of any mechanism to separate genuine reviews from fake ones.

The meeting was attended by major online food business operators including Swiggy and Zomato as well as the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI). The NRAI stated delivery charges are determined and levied by the FBOs. Further, a commission of around 20% is also charged by the online FBOs on each order, highlighting unethical practices of FBOs.

E-commerce FBOs were directed by the Department to show consumers the breakup of all charges included in the order amount such as delivery, packaging, taxes, surge pricing, etc. The DCA also said that the platforms must also show individual consumer reviews transparently and refrain from showing only the aggregation of reviews. FBOs should to allow consumers the choice to share their contact information with the restaurants.

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