A Hyderabad woman claimed that a Swiggy Genie delivery guy stole her husband's laptop and later blackmailed them to pay him Rs 15,000 to deliver the electronic item back through Rapido.
The woman said the guy who was registered with Swiggy and the guy who went to pick up the delivery were two different people.
A Hyderabad woman claimed that a Swiggy Genie delivery guy stole her husband's laptop and later blackmailed them to pay him Rs 15,000 to deliver the electronic item back through Rapido.
Nishitha Gudipudi, a civil engineer, shared the incident in a post on LinkedIn, saying that her husband had booked a Swiggy Genie to pick up his backpack from one office and drop it to another in Madhapur.
Gudipudi claimed that after picking up the backpack, it seemed that he opened it midway and saw there's a laptop in it, following which he switched off his phone.
"He basically stole the laptop and initially we though okay, partially error at our end too to use genie to deliver the laptop but how things took a turn after is what really surprised and scared us," she added.
What exactly happened was the guy who was registered with Swiggy and the guy who went to pick up the delivery were two different people. Turns out that the originally verified person's friend logged in using his details and went for the Genie pickup.
Gudipudi said that when she and her husband reached out to the Swiggy customer care about the theft, they couldn't identify the person who was on their booking. The company sent her two pictures, asking to identify which one of them it was.
"Looked like they let person X register with his Aadhar or PAN and the system lets any Tom Dick and Harry of his friends or relatives login through facial recognition," the post read.
The woman then said, "MOST OF ALL the scariest part: the next day we could reach the guy through WhatsApp call and he answered saying my friend was using my login, I'll check and get back, and immediately we get a WhatsApp message from the same number blackmailing us to pay him 15k to deliver the laptop through Rapido!!"
Gudipudi shared the pictures of the two persons -- the one who was registered and the one who stole the laptop -- and also shared a screenshot of the WhatsApp chat.
She slammed that such are the kind of people who are hired by Swiggy and "we let them up until our house doors to deliver things".
She said that the delivery platform did not have identification of the guys. "I have read online multiple such cases of stealing by swiggy after our incident and it just created a concern of safety issues! I would prefer no convenience over exposure to such criminals, and failed process and technology at their end," she added.
She urged people to beware of such incidents on online platforms.
Notably, while some people reacted saying that what happened was wrong, the choice of getting a laptop or company assets delivered via a B2C service was also not a good idea.
Some people also shared their own experiences with such platforms and said that this was a good lesson learnt, adding that people use brands like Swiggy because it is an unicorn and a brand that is trusted by many.
"Luckily, you are in Hyderabad, a city known for having the best police force. Just go ahead and file a complaint; you will be pleasantly surprised to see how easily this whole issue will be resolved. It won’t take more than two days," another LinkedIn user commented while sharing his own experience of timely action by the Police.