I had a really frustrating experience with Zomato and want to know if this is normal now.
Last night around 3:00 AM, I placed a prepaid order worth ₹670. My full address, flat number and GPS location are correctly saved in the app. I was at home waiting for the order.
My phone went into sleep mode (aka Focus mode in Iphone), so I later realised I had missed multiple calls from the delivery partner. Instead of ringing the doorbell and delivering at my flat, the order was cancelled and marked as “customer unreachable”. Zomato is now refusing to refund the money and says 100 percent cancellation charges were applied because the order was already prepared.
Here is what makes no sense to me:
• I never selected “Do not ring the bell”. That means the default behaviour should be ringing the bell and delivering at the doorstep.
• If the delivery partner reached my location why he never attempted physical delivery?
• Why is answering calls treated as mandatory when full address and flat details are already provided?
• What is the point of providing GPS location and flat number if delivery still depends completely on phone calls?
• Why is there no option to add an alternate phone number?
• Every other delivery partner delivers inside my society without needing call confirmation.
Zomato’s response is basically that since I did not answer calls, the order had to be cancelled and no refund will be given. This feels like being charged for a service that was never provided. Has anyone else faced this? Did you manage to get a refund after escalation?
TL;DR: Missed delivery calls while phone was on sleep mode, rider never rang the bell, order got cancelled and ₹670 not refunded. Zomato says no refund because I was “unreachable”. Is this normal guys and what should I do?
P.S. Rephrased using chatGPT.