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SINGAPORE: For nearly three weeks, a 27-year-old man ordered more than S $ 700 worth of meals through food delivery apps, sent them to his neighbors’ apartments, and ate them without paying.
On four counts of cheating, with nine additional counts taken into consideration, Leonard Tan Tong Han was sentenced to seven days in jail on Thursday (September 17).
Tan stayed on a floor on the 14th floor in Choa Chu Kang, and carried out the deception by having food delivered to his neighbors’ floors on the floors just above and below his own.
The court heard that Tan placed multiple food orders on the GrabFood and Foodpanda mobile apps between February 25 and March 14, with no intention of paying for his orders.
He selected the “cash on delivery” payment option when placing the order and, before the food arrived, he sent messages to the delivery passengers telling them to leave the food outside the apartment. He also told them that he would make the payment through PayLah! or PayNow.
When he saw that the food had arrived, he would go to his neighbors’ apartments and collect the food from outside the apartments. However, he did not pay for the orders.
To carry out his plan, Tan set up multiple accounts on the food delivery apps with fictitious names and random phone numbers so they couldn’t contact him later.
In one of the March 8 incidents, Tan ordered food from a restaurant on Gangsa Road through the Foodpanda app, under the false name “Sammy Leong.”
He chose the “cash on delivery” option for the order of S $ 91.59, which he arranged to be delivered to his neighbor’s apartment on the 13th floor.
In his comments on the application, Tan wrote: “Leave the food on top of the cobbler … picking up the kids from the hospital. Just send me an email with your payment number, I’ll pay now and by whatsapp.”
The courier placed the food in the shoe rack outside Tan’s neighbor’s apartment, sent a photo of the delivery to a number Tan had given him, and left.
THE RIDER OF DELIVERY FEELING THAT SOMETHING WAS EASY
Later, Tan picked up the food, but the food delivery man felt something was wrong when he received no response to his photo. He returned to the floor and saw that the food was gone.
The cyclist knocked on the door of the apartment, but the neighbor told him that he had not made any food delivery orders, adding that there had been similar incidents.
The cyclist reported the case to Foodpanda. The neighbor had filed a police report on February 25 about two pizza delivery orders that had been sent to his home.
The total losses suffered by GrabFood and Foodpanda amounted to S $ 718.54. Tan has paid the companies in full.
The judge allowed Tan to serve out his sentence on October 1.
For each count of cheating, you could have been jailed for up to three years, fined, or both.
