Online boom, or bane? Customer gripes also pile up against delivery boys

New Delhi, March 20:”I miss you lot, nice your beauty, wonderful behaviour,” a Delhi woman received these messages on her WhatsApp from a Swiggy agent, who had delivered groceries at her doorstep in June last year.

Prapthi posted a screenshot of the message on her Twitter handle while narrating her ordeal.

“I’m sure that most women on here can relate to this. I got a grocery delivery from Swiggy Instamart on Tuesday night (June 14, 2022). The delivery guy sent me creepy messages on WhatsApp today (June 16, 2022). Not the first time, not the last time something like this is happening,” she had said in a series of tweets.

“But I decided to something more than just blocking his number this time. So I contacted Swiggy Cares through the app and registered a complaint. Surprisingly, all I received were generic responses which did nothing to ease my discomfort or reassure me of quick action”.

“I hope Swiggy does better. Please do not take harassment enabled by your app lightly. They know where we live. Support protocol must be reassuring to the complainant and put a stop to an incident quickly and for good before it escalates to more serious offences/danger”.

“I’ve been in a situation where an incident has escalated to being real physical threat because of inaction by LE agencies. So, this was a trigger. Now, inevitably, today’s incident will come to mind whenever I order groceries/food late at night or when I’m alone at home”.

However, in another post a day later, she said that she had received a call from the Swiggy’s CEO office, who had assured her to take all necessary measures.

“Post this thread, I was contacted by Swiggy’s escalation team yesterday and by their CEO Office today. They listened to me and assured that they would do take all the necessary measures to stop this and to learn from this so as to prevent it from happening again,” she tweeted.

No police complaint was filed in the case.

According to a senior police official, whenever complaints of misbehaviour and harassment are received, strict action is taken against the accused.

“We also keep in touch with the companies urging them to sensitise the delivery staff to avoid any untoward incident,” the official said.

This is not the first case where such complaints of misbehaviour or harassment by the delivery agent with customers had come to light, especially on social media.

On March 15, a Twitter user in Delhi claimed that a man who was her Rapido driving partner sent her messages on WhatsApp around 1.25 a.m.

The tweet has been going viral with many users questioning the safety of women while sharing personal details on ride-hailing apps.

According to the screenshots, the man sent a series of texts in Hindi at 1.25 am asking the woman if she was awake. He went on to explain that seeing her profile picture and hearing her voice motivated him to come and pick her up.

“Otherwise I was very far, wouldn’t have come at all,” he writes in Hindi before his final audacious text: “And yes, another thing, I am not bhaiyya (brother)”.

The woman shared the screenshot, posting: “Shared my location with a captain at @rapidobikeapp and this is what I get.” She followed it up with cuss words.

In yet another case, on March 1, on Swiggy, a customer had placed an order for mutton korma and naan from a restaurant in Karol Bagh. The customer’s delivery address was near Ram Kachori shop near Jamuna Bazar Hanuman Mandir in Kashmere Gate.

The delivery agent for Swiggy, however, refused to deliver the non-vegetarian food item due to the customer’s location near the temple.

He even got into a heated conversation with the customer.

However, sources in Swiggy claimed that the delivery boy was still a part of the food-delivery service app and his ID has not been closed.