Sunday, January 28, 2018

How Beijing Bites can possibly cheat Zomato and the customers

You have decided to order food through a famous food delivery chain app.  
You chose a popular Chinese restaurant chain which has a decent customer rating.  
You are now looking forward to the food to arrive and to having a great family time.

What can possibly go wrong?  

Here is my family's horrific experience of finding a cockroach in the food followed by the discovery of how customers are cheated by a restaurent to make some quick money.

1.  Yesterday, I placed an order (cash on delivery) on the Zomato.com website, to deliver food from Beijing Bites in Yelahanka.  Zomato.com status said the order was sent to the restaurent



2.  Received 2 SMS messages from Zomato, 1 for sending the order to the restaurant, 2nd for the restaurant confirming the order 


3.  Even after 20 mins the status at the website did not change

4.  Interestingly, after some time, the Delivery boy arrived at the doorstep, he delivered the food and asked for the payment.  He also insisted that we pay the delivery charges.  I told him that the order was placed through Zomato and he shouldn't charge for the delivery.  "I didn't know it was ordered through Zomato... its ok Sir" he moved away.  

Also, the bill that he gave from "Beijing Hotels Pvt Ltd" and not from Zomato.


5.  We started eating the food and we were having a good family time.
6.  Then came a shocker when suddenly my wife screamed "cockroach"!!  A "dead cockroach" was found in the "Veg Dragon Chopsey".  All of us ended up puking instantly.


7.  I sent a tweet to Zomato and instantly received a callback.  The lady on the phone apologized and said she would deliver some other food.  

8.  Insisted to have the CEO of Zomato to visit us to learn the horrific story.  A simple apology was not acceptable for a situation like this.

9.  Later in the night, I received 2 more phone calls, presumably from Zomato, I wasn't in a mood to talk to them.  

10.  Today morning, came another shocker when I opened my laptop.  The Zomato order screen was there right in front of me.  The order status read, "Rejected".  I smelled something more than a dead cockroach.



"Beijing Bites is possibly cheating both Zomato and their customers, and this is my theory."

1.  The order was placed to Beijing bites and was initially accepted
2.  They received the order details and started preparing the food.

In an ideal scenario, Zomato would be notified once the food was ready and the Zomato delivery boy picks the food to deliver to the customer.  Zomato gets paid a % of the order value.

But in the yesterday's food order,

1.  Beijing Bites confirmed the order and after they got the order details, they canceled the order quoting they were busy.  Zomato should have notified me ideally, but this did not happen.  Beijing Bites is very smart here.
2.  Beijing Bites then packs and sends the food directly to my home using its own delivery boy.  Also adds a 50 Rs. delivery charge.  By doing this, they don't have to pay anything to Zomato.
3.  Usually, most customers don't get into details.  Once the food arrives on time everything is perfect.  How many customers would notice the 50 rupees delivery charge and question the delivery boy?

Now that the cockroach and the foul play are out what should happen?

Now that Zomato knows this incident, shouldn't they delist the restaurant from its directory for cheating?

Whats the role of BBMP in ensuring the food and hygiene safety of restaurants are checked, monitored and also the license canceled for not ensuring food and hygiene standards?

Finally, how can anyone compensate my family for going through this disgusting and horrific ordeal?

I'm neither poor nor that entitled

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