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Singapore — A Foodpanda rider shared his unfortunate experience with a customer. He took to Facebook on Saturday morning (Feb 20), sharing screenshots of the conversation.

Posted by Chan Okada SJ on Friday, 19 February 2021

The rider shared that the customer had asked to cancel her order, at 10.57am. The cancellation was demanded for no reason, with the customer telling him “don’t ask why”.

He then tried to explain that there is no option to cancel the order on his end. However the customer told him to “ask your dispatch la dumb” when he professionally tried to explain his situation to her.

He was later than called “blur sotong” by the customer as well. “Blur sotong” is a Singlish phrase most commonly used to describe someone who is slow in understanding something.

Photo: Facebook screengrab/ Chan Okada SJ

The rider managed to let dispatch know about the cancellation of order within 7 minutes. However, he also explained that the customer is usually the one who cancels the order, instead of the rider. “It’s not the rider’s job” he shared.

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The customer proceeded to comment that “no worries, Long way to go to study foodpanda”. Which insinuated that the driver was less educated than her.

This resulted in much anger from other food delivery drivers, who shared that many riders  have had formal education, some even to a tertiary level. One driver commented that “Little did they know this are side income for us.” and explained that just because they were doing delivery did not mean that they were uneducated.

The incident took around 30 minutes to settle after getting in contact with dispatch. Dispatch is similar to a customer service, which is in charge of communicating with riders should there be problems during the delivery. While 30 minutes may seem short, it could have been time spent by the driver to complete another order. He shares that this incident affected his earnings for the day, as it had taken up quite some time.

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The post has gone viral on Facebook, garnering over 2000 shares and nearly 100 comments. Most of the commenters are sympathetic towards the driver, and praising him for his understanding.

Photo: Facebook screengrab/ Chan Okada SJ

Other food deliver drivers are sharing their woes, one even had an encounter with the same customer who asked them to cancel the order only after delivering it to the stated address.

Netizens are suggesting that there should be a blacklisting function available, such that customers like her are stopped from taking up the time of both the driver and wasting food.

While many people have the view that food delivery riders are there to serve, it is also important to treat them with respect and decency. The rider urges Singaporeans to be kind towards food delivery riders as they ‘are  humans too’.

Denise Teh is an intern at The Independent SG. /TISG