Swiggy restaurant charges 45 rs for packaging, but forgets to add it

I didn't care much about this thread until i saw this while ordering on swiggy, After long time. Restaurant packing charges & GST on that!!! Hahahaha :p:p:p
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You can try switching to zomato.Unlike uber eats and swiggy zomato gets most of the things right.
Their delivery charge is also less compared to competition and I haven't seen any extra cost for packaging and stuff.
The rates are also similar to the ones that you will find in the restaurant menu card.

Plus you get offers daily basis like 50% off (upto Rs.100) etc
Cannot agree more..... They're good compared to Swiggy and Uber Eats!

UBER EATS has no proper customer support.. To be very honest...
 
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I am not sure why this happened to you although whenever I order from there I get the stuff packed. I think the payment is online and whenever an order is to be delivered, billing is made automatic as well. That is why it happened to you due to technical error. Am I right?
 
I just ordered from a "highly" rated restaurant on Swiggy for Rs. 200 worth of food. A restaurant where I had ordered multiple times. This time around the bread was super smelly and stale. Threw the food away. Called Swiggy. They offered me Rs. 50 coupon for next order.

When I pressured further they forwarded me to "escalation department". The person was completely oblivious to the issue saying "whatever problem you had" and "I will draft a strong email". And further more coupon amount is now Rs. 100. Still no offer for refund.

On pressuring further things came tumbling out - As per T&C they are only "delivery partners" and not liable for bad food. I told them that I had two questions in that case: 1. Why are they collecting money on behalf of restaurants? 2. And what is the number of the restaurant so that I can ask them for a refund directly? Both had no answer except - "As per T&C....."

Now for the question 1, some years ago there was a local courier company working in this area. People ordered food from restaurants via phone/site and these guys were responsible for only collection and delivery. The whole process was owned by the restaurant, so they could be contacted back in case of any issue. Swiggy meanwhile portrays itself as a middleman but refuses to acknowledge it as such.

I can see how they arrived at such conclusion - People exploiting their middleman status to file fraudulent stale/missing food and collecting money. But instead of building around the problem they thought of putting the onus on customers. And with people being people, this again can and will be exploited.

All being said, I deleted Swiggy app. I was one of their earliest customers. A time when they asked customers to open and verify the order in front of delivery person. I didn't have many options back then. I do now. And this new stance means there is a real chance of me sometime losing 1k or more without recourse.

TL;DR - Swiggy's new stance is that they are delivery partners. So if your food is missing/bad they will not refund you.
 
None of the food delivery services ever had any policy of refunds for bad food. For missing items, their liability is first to attempt delivery of the missing items if its agreeable or refund if its not feasible or not agreeable to the customer. There never was a change in stance. It was the only stance from the get go.

The problem in India (and many other counties) is people don't bother to read what the scope of a service is (usually covered under T&C) and blame the wrong party when things go wrong. "Who bothers reading T&C" is not a valid excuse.

Regarding "collecting money on behalf of restaurants", If you go to a restaurant, order food and pay by card or paytm, the money is collected by a gateway service provider on behalf of the merchant. Even when you go through swiggy, citrus, PayU or some other service provider is also involved in the chain of collecting the money on behalf of the restaurant. So, should people also hold those companies as well responsible for a bad food experience?

First of all, bad food is very subjective. Forget online ratings, I have myself ordered food from restaurants recommended by my colleagues in addition to being highly rated online and found it utter crap to the point that I could not eat even a couple of morsels. Who can I blame in this case for the bad experience. Should I ask my colleagues for a refund because it came highly rated from them? Who is to blame for this except for the restaurant itself. My mom labels every single restaurant food item as bad. Her best rating of any restaurant food is "barely edible".

This is why the restaurants themselves rarely entertain refunds for "bad food" these days because it is subjective and more often than not, people try to exploit the label of "bad food" to try and get refunds after half eating the food.

Even if the delivery service provider were liable, I don't understand the point of throwing away the food and then expecting that service provider to take responsibility. Will Amazon accept a refund request if you throw away a delivered item because its of poor quality or damaged?

Even I had my fair share of bad experiences on Swiggy. 3-4 times, the food was inedible for me to the point I had to throw it away. I don't blame swiggy for that, but the restaurants themselves. I rate them 1 star on swiggy and every other place I can, look up their number and complain directly. If you want to take it further, you can also involve food safety dept depending on the case.

I also had 3-4 incidents of missed items which is again a fault on restaurant side, but still falls under the liability of swiggy and every time, they either offered a re delivery of the complete item or a refund depending on my choice.

I also had one occasion of a delivery guy picking up Rs 1000+ worth of food and running away with it. I was promptly refunded and a extra coupon given for the trouble.
 
None of the food delivery services ever had any policy of refunds for bad food. For missing items, their liability is first to attempt delivery of the missing items if its agreeable or refund if its not feasible or not agreeable to the customer. There never was a change in stance. It was the only stance from the get go.

The problem in India (and many other counties) is people don't bother to read what the scope of a service is (usually covered under T&C) and blame the wrong party when things go wrong. "Who bothers reading T&C" is not a valid excuse.

Regarding "collecting money on behalf of restaurants", If you go to a restaurant, order food and pay by card or paytm, the money is collected by a gateway service provider on behalf of the merchant. Even when you go through swiggy, citrus, PayU or some other service provider is also involved in the chain of collecting the money on behalf of the restaurant. So, should people also hold those companies as well responsible for a bad food experience?

First of all, bad food is very subjective. Forget online ratings, I have myself ordered food from restaurants recommended by my colleagues in addition to being highly rated online and found it utter crap to the point that I could not eat even a couple of morsels. Who can I blame in this case for the bad experience. Should I ask my colleagues for a refund because it came highly rated from them? Who is to blame for this except for the restaurant itself. My mom labels every single restaurant food item as bad. Her best rating of any restaurant food is "barely edible".

This is why the restaurants themselves rarely entertain refunds for "bad food" these days because it is subjective and more often than not, people try to exploit the label of "bad food" to try and get refunds after half eating the food.

Even if the delivery service provider were liable, I don't understand the point of throwing away the food and then expecting that service provider to take responsibility. Will Amazon accept a refund request if you throw away a delivered item because its of poor quality or damaged?

Even I had my fair share of bad experiences on Swiggy. 3-4 times, the food was inedible for me to the point I had to throw it away. I don't blame swiggy for that, but the restaurants themselves. I rate them 1 star on swiggy and every other place I can, look up their number and complain directly. If you want to take it further, you can also involve food safety dept depending on the case.

I also had 3-4 incidents of missed items which is again a fault on restaurant side, but still falls under the liability of swiggy and every time, they either offered a re delivery of the complete item or a refund depending on my choice.

I also had one occasion of a delivery guy picking up Rs 1000+ worth of food and running away with it. I was promptly refunded and a extra coupon given for the trouble.
You are drawing some really weird conclusions here. I can see another big post coming but this is been a boring weekend so here it goes:

First, let me agree on something - there are no refunds for bad food. It is just a choice and it happens. It has happened with me on Swiggy and I simply rate the food bad and move on. If it happens in a restaurant, I simply avoid going there. But I guess you had to make a long para about subjectivity hence you ignored the "ordered multiple times" part. There is a difference between bad food and rotten food.

Second, your example of Paytm vs Swiggy etc, I guess you don't understand how deals happen? Paytm or card or cash are transaction modes. They are not the counterparty. In your example, the restaurant is still the counterparty. In Swiggy's case, Swiggy is the counter-party. As to whether they are liable is an interesting case because.....

Third party aggregators by virtue of their business model are never liable. They are simply a platform for two different, maybe even distrusting parties to meet. They can set the rules about how people interact off each other on their platform.

But this leaves a question - Why should I even trust the third party aggregators at all ? The aggregators act in good faith and earn traction. They build trust over time. What this means is while companies like Uber are not inherently liable for a "bad experience with the cabbies" they do care. They compensate generously to make sure people are happy. That is why, when I talk to people into using Uber I verbally assure them - Don't worry if something happens Uber will take care of it. I did so in case of Swiggy too but no more.

Fourth, you also ignored the fact that I asked them the contact number of restaurant to raise this complain. But Swiggy ignored me. I can see why - restaurant owners will love to get a call about problems with their "delivery partner".

Lastly, the problem is not "T&C". The problem is after all these years, I had Swiggy escalation department pulling up my order list and going "Well Sir, T&C". I can imagine how they treat their newer customers. This seems to be the problem with home-grown "unicorns". They know jackshit about customer service. Flipkart was upsured by Amazon because of their customer handling process. I am sure Uber Eats can beat Swiggy if they continue on this path.

That being said, when I complained on Twitter I got a panic call from Swiggy stating they are calling from "escalation escalation department". And they refunded me after getting a verbal promise to write about how great their service really is.

But I don't think I will be ordering from them now.
 
But I guess you had to make a long para about subjectivity hence you ignored the "ordered multiple times" part. There is a difference between bad food and rotten food.

No, I didn't ignore it at all. I am talking about how the service provider/restaurant is going to see it.. You say that the food is bad and say use words like "stale" or "rotten", but these are heavily abused words for food. Given the subjective nature of what is considered bad food by various people, how are they supposed to react to your claim? Furthermore, you mentioned that you threw away the food before calling swiggy.

Second, your example of Paytm vs Swiggy etc, I guess you don't understand how deals happen? Paytm or card or cash are transaction modes. They are not the counterparty. In your example, the restaurant is still the counterparty. In Swiggy's case, Swiggy is the counter-party. As to whether they are liable is an interesting case because.....

Each of the service providers in the chain has a role to play in the completion of the transaction and that makes them all parties with different responsibility . This includes your bank/wallet and the payment gateways ( and they are themselves aggregators with a different focus area). With cash, there is no additional party because you are the party. If your bank or wallet is declining a transaction, you don't blame the restaurant for it. Bottom-line, just because a service provider is handling your money in a transaction doesn't mean that they are responsible for the end goal of that money, but they all are all still responsible for specific areas of it.

The issue where you are struck is whether Swiggy as a delivery service is liable for the quality of the food that they deliver from the restaurant that you yourself selected. Common sense is probably enough to conclude that they are not liable. At least not unless they expressly advertise and take responsibility for it.

Third party aggregators by virtue of their business model are never liable.

Not true. They are liable for the core service they are provide. In the case of swiggy, they are liable to

1. Deliver food in a reasonable time frame.
2. Deliver all the food items ordered. (No missing items)
3. Deliver the food in good condition and by that I mean no spillages etc. not the quality of the food itself. Even if the restaurant is responsible for bad packing, it is swiggy that is responsible for mishaps once they decide to deliver it in that condition.

They are simply a platform for two different, maybe even distrusting parties to meet. They can set the rules about how people interact off each other on their platform.

Not necessary. You are thinking of just one specific use case which is escrow. There are other reasons for existence of third party aggregators. Even if you take example of swiggy, the reason for using them is not a trust issue with the restaurants, but because, even if you trust them and willing to pay them money in advance, many of them just don't have the capability to provide you home delivery. They fulfill a service that wan't there. Its the same for payment gateways. They don't exist because people don't trust banks, but because they provide a service of easily integrating a bunch of payment options.

But this leaves a question - Why should I even trust the third party aggregators at all ? The aggregators act in good faith and earn traction. They build trust over time. What this means is while companies like Uber are not inherently liable for a "bad experience with the cabbies" they do care. They compensate generously to make sure people are happy. That is why, when I talk to people into using Uber I verbally assure them - Don't worry if something happens Uber will take care of it. I did so in case of Swiggy too but no more.

There is no reason to trust them. And I definitely don't go trusting service providers just because they sometimes go beyond their obligations to appease customers here and there. I keep reasonable expectations which are line with their obligations. For example, If I have a missed item, I expect it to be replaced, but also that the issue is not repeated in future. I am looking for consistency in fulfilling obligations, not in taking care of it afterwards


Fourth, you also ignored the fact that I asked them the contact number of restaurant to raise this complain. But Swiggy ignored me. I can see why - restaurant owners will love to get a call about problems with their "delivery partner".

Not their obligation, I totally understand where you are coming from, but still not their obligation.
 
In my case, UberEats refunded the amount for bad food.

Another case, yes, sometimes even the restaurant which gives good food gives a sub par experience. I did not take it up since I did not take delivery of the same, had re-ordered for a collegue.
 
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