Do you often order food online? Beware, as you can be the next target of this new Swiggy/Zomato scam. A new fraud, silently developing across food-delivery platforms, is challenging that fundamental base, one refund and one delivery at a time. On the outside, it appears to be a glitch. But underlying it is a rising scam that harms businesses, misleads customers and escapes the platforms.

In a video, currently surfacing online, a content creator talked about this new scam, which left her amused by ‘how can people get so creative."

Sharing her own experience with the fraudster, she said, “We ordered Pizza from Swiggy and after 15-20 minutes, we received a call saying that the driver had met with an accident, so the restaurant would fulfil the order directly. When we called the restaurant and inquired about it, they said ‘We do not do direct deliveries’, so we thought that’s a red flag."

The content creator added, “When we contacted Swiggy, they said that your order cannot be fulfilled, so we will just process the refund and we received our full amount instantly and understood that the food is not coming."

But what happened next left her completely shocked.

Later on, she received a call from a Swiggy delivery partner saying that he was standing right outside her house with the food, leaving her confused. After taking the food, the delivery agent said, ‘Apko refund mil gaya hoga, to ye QR code hai aap ispe directly pay kardo’.

Fortunately, the consumer became sceptical and contacted the restaurant immediately, only to realise that they do not offer direct deliveries. “You simply take the pizza and do not pay him," the restaurant Manager told her.

She captioned the post saying, “The scammer keeps the entire amount, with no accountability or platform traceability. This is more than just one free meal. It's a systematic collapse in trust, revenue, and logistics. This “scam" involves inventory loss, fraudulent payouts, bogus delivery performance statistics, and the risk of customer dissatisfaction for small eateries with limited margins and delivery aggregators processing millions of transactions per day."

The creator went on to explain that the scam could result in:

Fraudulent PayoutsCustomer Safety RisksFalse delivery performance statisticsLoss of restaurant trust in platforms

How to keep yourself safe?

If your order gets cancelled and then a delivery person may show up at your place with your order. Here are the key steps that you must follow:

Do not trust the delivery agent and refuse to take the food.Immediately contact the restaurant and ask if they provide direct deliveriesContact the customer care.Make sure you’re paying the right person.

As soon as the creator shared her experience, Swiggy responded to it and assured to look into the matter.