SINGAPORE: A video of a Grab delivery rider taking a pair of Adidas slippers from outside a flat and returning them moments later has sparked discussion online. The incident, shared on social media on Tuesday (Jan 21), raised questions about the rider’s intentions. When confronted by the slippers’ owner, the rider claimed he was merely checking the slippers’ anti-slip properties.
In a message exchange with the flat owner, the rider denied wrongdoing, saying, “Put back, ya. I’m just checking to see if the slipper base has anti-slip properties. Never take or steal.”
When The Independent Singapore reached out to Grab for further comments or updates, a spokesman for the company told TISG, “We are aware of the incident and have since suspended the delivery partner from our platform after our investigation.”
The video was shared on the Instagram account @sgfollowsall on Tuesday (Jan 21). It starts with the food delivery rider approaching the door and hanging a food order in a white plastic bag on the door handle. He then steps backwards, snaps a picture of the order with his phone as proof of delivery, and turns to leave.
However, as he walks away and is almost out of the camera’s view, he casually stretches out his left hand and takes a pair of striped slippers on the topmost shoe rack shelf.
The clip is timestamped at 4:11:28 on Jan 20, 2025. However, less than half a minute later, at 4:11:55, a hand can be seen again placing the slippers back where they had been taken from.
Ten seconds later, a woman can be seen opening the flat door to take the food order from the door. The woman would have seen him if the food delivery rider had been slower in putting the slippers back.
According to @singaporefollowsall, the video had been shared by one of the account’s followers. It includes screenshots from the message exchange between them and the delivery rider and shows that he is a Grab employee and the order had come from Kimly Dim Sim at Kebun Baru Palm View.
More importantly, it also shows that the flat owner had written that they would call the police because the rider had taken their Adidas slippers.
The delivery rider feigned ignorance of the situation and asked what the flat owner meant. He also asked them to “see properly” to determine whether their slippers had been taken.
The flat owner replied, “I know you put it back,” the rider answered that he had merely wanted to check whether the slippers were anti-slip. /TISG