The next time your food delivery order doesn’t show up, don’t fret — the entire situation could end up sponsoring your eating out bill for several years.
A woman from Karnataka has been awarded Rs. 60,000 in damages from a consumer court after her order for momos worth Rs. 133.25 wasn’t delivered to her. Sheetal from Dharwad in Karnataka had placed an order for momos on Zomato for Rs. 133.25 on 31st August, and made the payment through Google Pay. Fifteen minutes after she’d placed the order, she received a message from Zomato saying that her order was delivered. But Sheethal says the order was never delivered to her, and no delivery agent came to her house.
When she asked the restaurant about the order, she was told the delivery agent had taken the order from them. She tried to contact the delivery agent through Zomato, but the agent did not respond. On the very same day, Sheethal complained to Zomato through email, and received an intimation asking her to wait for 72 hours for a response.
But after Sheethal received no response from Zomato for over two weeks, she sent a legal notice to Zomato on 13th September. In response to the notice, the counsel of Zomato appeared in the court and denied the allegations as false. However, the court observed that Zomato sought 72 hours to attend to the grievance of the complainant but did not do so, which made their say in regard to the case appear to be unreliable.
On 2nd May this year — 9 months after the order was placed — Zomato refunded Rs. 133.25 into her account. The commission said this showed Zomato committed a deficiency of service, causing a great amount of inconvenience and mental agony to the complainant. “Zomato is carrying their business of supply of materials in response to the online orders placed by the customer. Despite receipt of the purchase money, Zomato did not deliver the required product to the complainant. By looking into these facts of the case on hand in our opinion Op no. 1 (Zomato) alone is liable to answer the claim of the complainant,” the commission said.
In the order, the court ordered Zomato to pay Sheethal Rs. 50,000 as compensation towards the inconvenience and mental agony caused to her, and Rs. 10,000 towards her litigation cost.
Rs. 60,000 is nothing to be sneezed at — it can buy Sheethal momos every day for a year and half for the inconvenience of missing out on one order. But orders like these will not only empower customers to fight for their rights, but will also hold service platforms to account — the penalties for slipping up are no longer cheap.