There are often reports that a customer received wrong food or the delivery was delayed, but the other side of the coin is very shocking. Deependra Goyal, CEO of Zomato and BlinkIt, has recently made a revelation which has created a stir in the world of online food delivery. He said that fraud is not only happening at the delivery level, but also on the part of the customers, and its methods are so high-tech that it becomes difficult to believe.
Speaking in a podcast with Raj Shamani, Deependra Goyal told how far some customers can go to get free food or get a refund. He revealed that many people deliberately put hair in their food and then photograph it and complain to the company. The aim is only one, to ask for the money back.
Goyal said that now Artificial Intelligence (AI) has entered the fraud. Some cunning customers use AI tools to create fake pictures of food in which flies, insects or nails are visible. These pictures look so real that it is impossible to catch them at first glance. Customers claim that they have received similar food from Zomato and demand a refund.
Deependra Goyal said that there has been a sudden increase of 5 percent in the complaints of 'cake smash' i.e. cake deflating. When the company investigated it in depth, it was found that it was not the fault of the delivery partner, but the manipulation of the customers.
People use AI to create photos of a cake that has arrived safely, in which it looks completely spoiled or flattened. After this, they lodge a complaint on the app and get a refund, while in reality they are happily enjoying the cake. This type of fraud is causing huge financial loss for companies.
Goyal admitted that there are many irregularities on the part of some delivery partners also. He told that every month on an average 5,000 delivery partners are fired from work due to fraud.
The most common method is to mark 'delivered' on the app without delivering the food and keep the food yourself. Apart from this, customers are also defrauded in cases of Cash on Delivery (COD). Many times riders say that they do not have change and they will come later. The customer agrees out of trust, but the rider never comes back.
Zomato is now taking strict steps to deal with all these problems. The company has implemented 'Karma Score' system. This system scans the old records of both the customer and the delivery partner. If a customer has repeatedly asked for refunds or has engaged in suspicious activities, his score will be reduced and his complaints will not be accepted so easily. The same rule applies to riders also. The objective of this system is to protect the interests of genuine customers and hardworking delivery partners, so that the entire system does not come into disrepute because of a few fraudsters.
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