back to article Teen charged after allegedly taking food delivery biz for a ride: $10k of 'fraudulent refunds for stuff not delivered'

Singapore police have charged a 17-year-old lad after food delivery service Foodpanda noticed he had allegedly requested refunds for a staggering SG$14,000 (US$10,200) worth of stuff he fraudulently claimed was not delivered. Foodpanda delivers freshly-cooked food, groceries and even booze. The Register ran a hungry eye over …

  1. jake Silver badge

    Software?

    Methinks business intelligence wetware should probably be first on the agenda.

    1. Chris G

      Re: Software?

      A delivery service that uses drones in the office?

  2. XPeterX
    WTF?

    WTF?

    Foodpanda didn't notice refunds to a customer of SG$14,000(US$10,200) over eight months+ for what appears to have been for derelict service? I'm thinking perhaps Foodpanda didn't notice that for all that time because their service is normally not very good. Otherwise I can't imagine a company not noticing that happening for eight months!

    1. Giles C Silver badge

      Re: WTF?

      Makes you wonder how many people after reading this article might try something similar but on a smaller scale.....?

      Seriously though how much is it paying in refunds every week not to notice this.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Linux

      Re: WTF?

      Pandas are notoriously lazy - due to their poor diet of bamboo. Which means they have to spend most of their time either eating, or sleeping.

      Thinks: Wonder what panda tastes like?

      I've gone for the closest icon I could get.

      1. Zarno
        Holmes

        Re: WTF?

        I've heard bear tastes ungodly gamey/greasy, so probably a bit like a greasy Kung-Fu Chicken that's sat out for a half day in a car park.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: WTF?

          Bear meat resembles old beef, being stringy, greasy, and somewhat grainy in texture. It is vaguely sweet, the more fruit in the critters diet, the sweeter it is. But bears are omnivores. If they are gorging on fish ...

          Pandas are folivores. They probably taste pretty much like any other mammal that eats leaves and shoots ... So they probably taste like sloth. Or perhaps Koala, but without the VapoRub.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: WTF?

        >>Pandas are notoriously lazy

        Apparently the males are the worst. A really lazy one just eats, shoots and leaves.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: WTF?

      I have seen IT projects racks up huge amounts on food delivery for year long projects.

      Lots bigger than 14k.

      AC because Im slightly embarrassed about how much delivery food I have eaten in my career.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: WTF?

        There's a brilliant bit in 'Liar's Poker', by Michael Lewis about his days at Saloman Brothers in Wall Street. They had what they called "feeding frenzies". When all the traders would send one lowly guy out to buy hundreds of dollars worth of pizza, burgers, chicken, chinese, whatever. And then they'd just gorge themselves silly in the trading room. I think this was back in the 80s, when they were inventing the original mortgage backed securities that so badly blew up a decade ago - and traders were much fatter and didn't go to the gym.

  3. chivo243 Silver badge

    I'll wager

    Foodpanda makes a decent coin, and has many, many refund requests that total in the 100,000 quatloos if not more, and this is only a drop in the ocean.

  4. Tom 7

    May we suggest it order some business intelligence software

    Only if it can afford intelligent managers capable of understanding and using the software. It never ceases to amaze me how confused high paid executive officers are confused with things like stock control. Most of them would be delighted with their cut of sales to the lad and would not be happy to lose it.

    1. YetAnotherLocksmith Silver badge

      Re: May we suggest it order some business intelligence software

      Ah yes, the old "That comes out a different budget" problem.

      The person getting the bonus for sales isn't affected by the rate of returns and refunds. What could go wrong? /s

  5. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

    A basic SQL query would be a decent start

    No need for business intelligence software, run a report each week that outputs all customers with a refund amount or number of refunds exceeds a given boundary in a recent timescale. Review it manually, the report should not be that long, even with a large number of customers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A basic SQL query would be a decent start

      The miscreant's name wasn't given, but perhaps it was something like "Robert'); DELETE FROM refunds WHERE TRUE;--"?

  6. AndersH

    A question is, do they have evidence that all these delivery were in fact not delivered? Maybe their service is just awful...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Subway & Uber Eats

    If Subway make the sandwich(or half-make it) and Uber Eats deliver it, who should pay up if the sandwich is not done how it should be?

    We recently ordered a couple of foot-long sandwiches and a couple of extra pots of dressings (one teriyaki, can't remember what the other was supposed to be), with tomato, lettuce and sweetcorn in one and everything except jalapenos in the other.

    The boxes duly arrived but one had a 6-inch with sweetcorn and a 6-inch with lettuce & tomato and the other box had half the salad one end and the other half the other end. There was no extra dressings and even the normal dressing was missing - both cardboard boxes were completely clean and dry!

    We rang Subway who said we had to take it up with Uber Eats, even though Subway hadn't given us what we'd paid for and Uber was only the carrier. After 3 attempts to complete the Uber Eats complaint process on their app - including taking photographs of the dressings that hadn't been delivered (yeah, they wanted a photograph to prove there was nothing in the box....) which all took over 30 minutes to do and disappeared as soon as we pressed 'Submit', we gave up and decided it will be a cold day in hell before we use Uber Eats or that branch of Subway again.

    1. The obvious

      Re: Subway & Uber Eats

      If you want to know who’s responsible, follow the money... The company responsible is always the one you paid.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Subway & Uber Eats

      The law in the UK is very clear. Your contract is with the person you paid. If your goods aren't fit, then it is their responsibility to remedy it or refund you. They then have to take it up with their service provider.

      Some companies ignore this. For example I had a problem with an iPhone 5 on contract from EE. They refused to fix it under warranty and said Apple insist on doing all that. Which was fine as I phoned Apple and they did fix it, but if they handn't, the contract was with EE and I would have made them sort it out.

      1. gnasher729 Silver badge

        Re: Subway & Uber Eats

        Your EE phone: Apple gives one year manufacturer's warranty (not required by law, but no warranty makes it hard to sell stuff). EE by law has to give you a "reasonable" amount of warranty, but after six months can demand that you prove the phone was defective when you bought it. Both Apple and EE MUST fix problems according to their warranty, Apple per contract for twelve months, EE by law for longer. Neither has the right to palm you off to the other.

        Since Apple ends up paying for the repair anyway unless the phone got damaged while in EE's possession, they may not bother going all legal and repair your phone anyway. Makes a happy customer, and in the back room they will swear at EE.

    3. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

      Re: Subway & Uber Eats

      As mentioned by everyone else, it's whoever you paid. Subway are probably responsible for the error (unless the ordering system in-between breaks things), but errors by sub contractors are Not Your Problem.

  8. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "May we suggest it order some business intelligence software?"

    Some criminal intelligence wouldn't have gone amiss if he thought they wouldn't notice eventually. Either that or it's a regular scam and he was the unlucky one.

  9. Aussie Doc
    Black Helicopters

    Hmm.

    Best way to get a delivery ------------------------------->

    How many refund requests, over what period of time, does a business have to get before it starts looking into QA aspects of their performance?

  10. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    Let the punishment fit the crime...

    Porridge in his case.

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