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Informist, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024

 

By Pallavi Singhal

 

NEW DELHI – the Central Consumer Protection Authority has issued notices to food delivery platforms Swiggy Ltd. and Zomato Ltd., seeking their response on growing number of consumer complaints against their grievance redressal mechanism. The National Consumer Helpline, run by the consumer affairs ministry, has received thousands of complaints against these food delivery service providers, two senior government officials told Informist media.

"The class action was initiated this week. We have received over 10,000 complaints against Zomato and over 7,000 complaints against Swiggy within a year," an official said. 

 

According to the officials, complaints against the platforms range from wrong deliveries of food to failure in addressing consumer complaints adequately. "One of the complaint enumerates how a woman who was delivered a wrong dish than what she ordered was offered a credit of INR 6 by the customer care representative. This is unfair and we cannot let this pass by," the second official said.

 

The companies have been given 15 days from the date of issuance of the notice, to file their responses. 

 

"The issue in such cases, however, remains the same. All such platforms cite section 79 of the Information Technology Act which says that an intermediary shall not be held liable for any third party information, data, or communication link. However, this Act was made at a time when such e-commerce websites did not exist. It was designed for social media sites such as Facebook. But this is the loophole they cling to," the first official explained. 

 

Here, the authority is likely to emphasise the fact that the platforms are charging a convenience fee for their services, taking part of the profits and even taking payments on behalf of the listed restaurant, then how can they not be held liable, the official said. "In fact, their algorithm is what decides which restaurant appears above others. How can they deny responsibility?" the official said. 

 

A similar step was taken against these firms in June 2022, when the consumer authority asked online food business operators like Swiggy and Zomato to submit a proposal to improve their consumer grievance redressal mechanism amid rising complaints from customers. As many as 3,631 grievances had been registered on the National Consumer Helpline against Swiggy and 2,828 against Zomato then.  End

 

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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