Get Instant Loan up to ₹10 Lakh!
Online food delivery platform Zomato Limited's Chief Executive Officer Deepinder Goyal apologised to customers for charging a “veg mode enablement fee” via the platform and called it stupid, while responding to a customer on the social media platform LinkedIn on January 17.
“This is absolutely stupid on our part. I am super sorry for this. This charge will be removed today itself,” said the Zomato chief, responding to a customer's LinkedIn post on Friday.
Goyal further assured the people on social media that the company would fix the wrongful charge imposed on the customers, and that he would “fix the team” to prevent such an issue from arising again.
“Will also fix what’s needed to fix in the team so that such s**t doesn’t happen again. Thank you for pointing this out,” said Deepinder Goyal, responding to an IIM graduate's post.
IIM Kozhikode graduate and former Big Basket Senior Executive Rohit Ranjan flagged that the food delivery platform was charging a “veg mode enablement fee” of ₹2 per order.
“Being a vegetarian in India these days feels like curse!” said Ranjan in his post on LinkedIn.
Sharing a screenshot of the bill summary, Ranjan highlighted that the platform was charging ₹2 as a fee, which is an extra charge for ordering food as a vegetarian.
“Zomato’s latest masterstroke—introducing an ‘extra charge’ for the veg enablement fleet—has officially turned us into a premium subscription plan,” alleged the former BigBasket executive.
People on social media reacted to this new charge issue and questioned when hidden charges like these will end for such platforms.
“Oh my god, where is this going to end?” questioned Anusha V, responding to Ranjan's post. The IIM graduate addressed her comment and said it will not end due to the investor's pressure to “maintain profitability q-o-q as well as topline too.”
Others appreciated Goyal's response to the customers' concerns and addressed the issue from the company's end. According to Goyal's response to the post, the hidden charge was removed within an hour to an hour and a half.
Zomato shares were trading 3.02 per cent higher at ₹249.30 in Friday's market session, compared to ₹242 at the previous close.
Catch all the Business News , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.