Man says foodpanda is “forcing me to spend this refund on their platform”

SINGAPORE: In a Reddit post, a man complained that foodpanda made a ‘mistake’ of refunding his orders through pandapay instead of his original payment method.

“Ordered a $303 food order for a small corporate event. Only the mains arrived with the sides and drinks missing.Filed a missing items request,” the man shared in his post regarding the incident. “After 2 days, the foodpanda staff processing this refunded incorrectly to my pandapay (there is not option in app to transfer it back to any external payment method), locking $104 in my pandapay for ‘use in my next order’”, he added. 

The man reached out to foodpanda and had the opportunity to chat with employees named ‘Jack’ and ‘Eric’. According to ‘Jack’, the refund can be transferred to his original payment method if he updates his mobile application. 

“After taking me for a loop insisting I update my app etc so that I can access the refund to original payment method option, he ended the chat abruptly,” the man mentioned. 

More so, ‘Eric’ said that since the refund was already transferred to pandapay, nothing could be done. 

“So I’m now stuck with $104 in a wallet on a service that I don’t intend to use (usually use Grabfood) but am forced to,” the man concluded. He added a disclaimer that he made sure all the refunds were to be transferred to the original payment method in the mobile application setting, and he has received a small amount in it. 

The Independent Singapore reached out to foodpanda and received the below statement that clarifies the matter:

Statement from foodpanda 

Ordinarily, refunds made to a customer’s pandapay wallet can be transferred to the original payment method by selecting the order which was refunded from the “Recent activities” section in their pandapay wallet. However, in select cases, including taking into account the customer’s transaction history on the platform, a transfer to the original payment method is restricted. Thus, in this instance, the refund was issued to customers’ pandapay wallet, and they can use their pandaway wallet balance to pay for future orders on the platform.

The refund to pandapay wallet also allows customers to receive their refunds instantly, and can be easily redeemed on their next order. In comparison, a refund to the original payment method may take a few working days to process.

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