Part of the lifestyle changes brought about by the long quarantine is the increased dependence on food delivery riders. I have used this service myself a few times using the popular mobile apps and can attest to its usefulness when you cannot prepare your own food for whatever reason; especially when venturing out to purchase important ingredients is severely limited.
A recent report from the Daily Tribune presented the kind of mistreatment the average rider faces from potential buyers every time he takes on an order; and that is on top of the other potential traffic hazards like being punched in the face by overzealous guards that was also reported recently.
According to the report, a Grab rider was found desperate by a staff as the food he paid for that amounted to P1,353.00 was cancelled at the last minute by the “supposed customer”. As most people using this kind of service knows, the riders pay for the food out of their own pockets until they get reimbursed for it and paid by the client upon delivery. Especially when it’s a cash on delivery kind of transaction (COD). Lucky for this particular rider, the store management decided to help him out by refunding his money.
A thousand may just be loose change to some. But to the working-class where this rider obviously belongs to, every peso counts. And the customer isn’t always right. If this keeps up without any kind of reasonable penalties against this behavior, we can expect COD as a mode of payment being scrapped in the future. And that’s too bad for the rest because a lot of people are comfortable with this kind of payment option.
It’s about time people learn the value of their word and commitment when entering a business transaction, no matter how small.
