Preface:
So we — as in me and my roommate Lokesh — after finishing our evening snacks, were ready to get back to our room, when we saw Devasya coming towards us. He planned on staying with us today. We sat in the room and talked about a lot of things, from Ashoka: The Great to Azul, a song by Guru.
Then, we received a call from Sarthak (Srivastav) stating that we should order some food from outside rather than eating in the hostel mess. We (4) agreed upon this. We gathered and decided to order Faasos (probably it was just me, but in case you also don’t know what this is — it’s a wrap-making franchise). After an hour of discussion, we finalized our selections.
Now what follows next is harder to comprehend, but I wish you all the best. 👍
Timeline:
It was 8:50 PM and we were expecting the order in frikin’ 59 mins (yeah, the perks of being in IIITN). The first thing that happened was quite normal — we missed one person’s order (maybe it got deleted while adding others to the cart). We thought of cancelling, but our whole money was getting deducted (₹1125), so we placed an add-on and ordered what was left (₹295).
After reordering, we discovered that Lokesh’s order was showing ₹306, while he had ordered worth ₹238 only. This got us wondering — if the order we re-placed was already done, did we add the puffs, dash dash dash? We then tried to cancel the new one, but again no refund was showing. This is the point where it all started getting Nolan-ised. Then we accepted our fate and thought of eating everything that was getting delivered tonight.
Subsequently, we started splitting the bill based on individual cost, GST/coupon, and card’s cashback. Just as we were about to finish (no pun intended), the delivery boy called and said that there’s something in our order that is out of stock. He then gave the phone to the manager, who told us the same thing. Although we asked for a refund first, he said he had to replace it; otherwise, we would have to talk with Zomato Care. Immediately, Zomato called. I put the manager on hold and picked up the incoming call — this guy started stating the same thing 😭.
I said, “Yeah yeah, there’s some blah blah item out of stock, and I was just talking to the manager himse—” but today was his best day and he was in his own mood. Interrupting me, he said, “I’m connecting you to the manager of the restaurant.” 😭😭 As soon as I could say anything, he merged the call, and now THE MANAGER: “Sir, we want to tell you that there’s this thing in your order which is ou—” I mean… what? I said, “Sir, just now (in present tense) we’re talking — you’re literally on hold right now.” 😭😭😭
The situation: I was talking with four people — delivery guy, manager from call 1, Zomato CC, and again the same manager via call 2. He then said that they could give us a refund. I asked for the details of all the cancelled items and their refunds. Hung up. All good? Hell NO.
After a while, Sarthak received a message that a refund of ₹1125 — I repeat, a refund of ₹1125 — had been initiated towards this and that. We were shocked. Why had they cancelled the whole order? The delivery guy called us and said, “I’m on my way with your two orders.” I asked, “What? Why? How?” He confirmed that he had received some message regarding cancellation but was coming anyway. We thought for a bit, and then (⚡) it hit us — maybe we could still get the food for free, as refund and food both were on their way.
When he came, we asked for both, but he handed over only one and said the other was cancelled. We explained, but to our misery, he said he had to return the food to Zomato (I was like whaa? Where is Zomato exactly in NGP?). Basically, in these situations where food is on the way but gets cancelled, the delivery boy gets the food after a cooling period of 2–3 minutes — during which it’s neither in the restaurant’s nor the customer’s possession. He asked us to wait for that cooling period so he could directly sell the food to us. 🫥
We finally bought the food from him at far less than the original price and headed back to the hostel.
Moral: Ghar baithe Zomato se khana order krne jaisa ek aasan kaam nhi thik se ho paya, aur hum Engineering kar rhe. May God bless us.
Ok Bye.
PS. That ₹306 error in Lokesh’s order was actually the wrap at its MRP, unlike ours at the discounted price — and we still don’t know why.
Ok Bye (for real).