If you’re a frequent user of GrabFood, you might’ve noticed something peculiar: Some shops might have increased the prices of their food on the GrabFood platform.
For example, what might cost you $3.50 if you walk in to order becomes $4.70 on the GrabFood app.
Which is pretty understandable, considering that GrabFood charges its partner-merchants 30% service fee for every order made through its app.
So if you want to avoid paying that extra money, you’ll just walk to the shop (if it’s nearby) and order in-store, right?
Unfortunately for this man, that wasn’t the case.
Man Allegedly Got Charged Food Delivery Prices in Yishun Eatery Even When He Was There to Dabao
In an angry Facebook post, a Singaporean man named Max Foong took to Facebook to share his experience with Sanook Kitchen at Northpoint City.
He had allegedly made his way to Sanook Kitchen at Northpoint City and ordered a pineapple fried rice on 8 Apr 2020.
However, instead of the in-store price of $5.90 and a takeaway charge of $0.20, he was charged $8.45 instead.
And it turns out that $8.45 is the price of Sanook’s pineapple fried rice on the GrabFood app.
“We’ve Always Been Charging This Way”
Unable to stomach the huge difference, he allegedly had a war of words with the shop’s employee.
Here’s the transcript of the alleged conversation in full:
Max: Your price should be $6.10, right? $5.90 as listed on your menu + $0.20 takeaway charge.
Employee: We’re following the prices on the Foodpanda and GrabFood platforms, which is why this is $8.45.
Max: But I came here myself to order and take away the food. What Foodpanda or GrabFood? This is wrong!
Employee: This is how we’re charging for our food here.
Max: You all shouldn’t do this. You never deliver anything to me, so how could you charge me for it? This is the last time I’ll be coming here.
Employee: Great, it’s fine.
I Can Afford To Pay But This is Unfair
He can afford the extra $2.35, he says in his post, but it’s the unfairness of the situation he cannot stomach.
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He felt that it wasn’t right for the store to be taking advantage of customers during this period (where people have no choice but to take away their food).
He also asks everyone to share his post and urges people not to visit the store.
You can read his full post here:
Has It Always Been Food Delivery Pricing?
After the man’s post, we got curious about whether the Sanook’s policy has always been to charge food delivery pricing for takeaways so we did a quick search for it.
According to this article by Ordinary Patrons, which was written yesterday (14 Apr 2020), it seems like they were charged the in-store menu pricing when they were there to dabao their food.