Zomato’s response to presence of one-dish eating places on its platform.
Dealing with criticism over the presence of suspicious ‘one-dish’ eating places on its platform, India’s meals supply big, Zomato, has issued a response. The corporate mentioned it had ‘delisted’ a few of the fraudulent eating places on its app that will have gamed the system to push ‘prohibited gadgets’. The emergence of shady listings on Zomato had led to social media customers floating a number of conspiracy theories, with some believing that the eating places had been a entrance for drug commerce whereas others claimed that Zomato was facilitating ‘cash laundering’ enterprise.
“We now have recognized all such eating places that had been doubtlessly fraudulent and have delisted them from our platform. To resolve this extra comprehensively, we have now additionally investigated all different eating places which have a really restricted menu on Zomato and may need listed prohibited gadgets or labored round a option to record prohibited gadgets,” a Zomato spokesperson mentioned.
“As per our coverage, all eating places listed on Zomato have to have a FSSAI license and we additionally actively block gadgets akin to alcohol, cigarettes/cigars/vapes from being listed on our platform,” they added.
The restaurant aggregator admitted that the mentioned eating places had been capable of sport Zomato’s “checks by utilizing generic meals names akin to, ‘Naughty strawberry’ and ‘Merry Berry'”.
“We now have additional strengthened our fraud checks to proactively establish such instances to keep away from comparable incidents sooner or later,” the corporate mentioned.
What was the controversy?
Final week, social media customers identified that such shady eating places had come up within the northern Indian union territory of Chandigarh — providing a single dish at ‘absurdly excessive costs’. A number of the suspicious eating places had no critiques whereas others had been bombarded with adverse critiques — probably to defend the operation from clients merely trying to order meals.
“Got here throughout some odd listings on Zomato in Chandigarh – so-called ‘eating places’ that solely supply a single dish, priced absurdly excessive. It is bought me questioning: may these be fronts for cash laundering or another shady enterprise?” learn the publish by a Redditor.
Additionally Learn | Weird “One-Dish” Eating places Seem On Zomato, Netizens Float Conspiracy Theories
Because the publish went viral, the customers got here up with their theories about what may have led to the emergence of such services.
“These appear like flavours of juice that you just put into your vapes. Pricing additionally appears to be like constant,” mentioned one consumer, whereas one other added: “True. I do know of a precise such operation in one other metropolis, that basically sells vape pens/cartridges. The worth is nearly the identical, Rs 1000- Rs 1200 per merchandise.”
One consumer identified that every one the eating places had been in the identical location ‘Nayagaon’, including to the thriller.