Gurgaon: A 30-year-old delivery executive was arrested on Monday for allegedly cheating an online food delivery platform by convincing customers to cancel their orders on the app and then delivering the food offline, at discounted prices for personal gain, thereby bypassing the company’s payment process.The accused, Monu, a resident of Dani Varman Barwala in Hisar district, was residing in Khandsa village and worked as a food delivery partner in Gurgaon for the past two years.According to police, a representative of the food delivery company approached the cybercrime (east) police station on Aug 20 last year, stating that some delivery partners were engaging in unfair practices, including asking customers to cancel their orders on the app on false pretexts and delivering them offline at lesser prices.The delivery executives would often state reasons like ‘roadblock’ or ‘long distance’ on the app to get the order cancelled just before delivery, hence escaping any penalties. While the order reflected as ‘cancelled’ in the company’s account, in reality, the food was already delivered offline.However, when such cancellations became frequent and discrepancies started reflecting in the company’s accounts, it triggered internal scrutiny. An FIR was registered under Section 318 (cheating) of the BNS. ACP (cybercrime) Priyanshu Diwan said further probe is underway to ascertain whether more delivery partners were involved in the act.
