People are using AI to add insects, flies and even smash cakes to claim refund from Zomato, CEO Deepinder Goyal reveals

Zomato

• Zomato CEO: Customers use AI to fake food issues for refunds
• Zomato removes 5,000 delivery partners monthly due to fraud and scams
• Zomato uses a "karma score" to judge complaints and balance fairness

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Some people are now using artificial intelligence to trick Zomato into giving them refunds, Zomato’s CEO Deepinder Goyal has revealed. In a recent conversation on YouTuber Raj Shamani’s podcast, Goyal spoke about the strange ways customers and delivery partners try to cheat the system.

According to Goyal, customers have started using AI tools to edit photos of their food orders before filing complaints. Instead of sending real photos of bad food, some people are adding fake flies, insects or other objects to the pictures. Others are using AI to make a perfectly good cake look smashed and messy. Goyal said Zomato suddenly saw a rise in these “smashed cake” complaints, which made the company take notice.

These tricks are done to get money back or to get the order replaced for free. Goyal described some of these acts as “insane,” and he pointed out that this is not just a one-off problem. Whether it is a fake fly or a digitally altered cake, people are trying to use these images to convince Zomato that their order was bad or damaged.

But fake pictures are only part of the problem. Some customers still use old-fashioned tactics too. Goyal said cases where people place their own hair in the food and then claim it belongs to the restaurant are still happening. Others open the packaging, break or press the food, take a photo and then act like it arrived that way. Zomato checks these claims closely because every refund affects the restaurant that prepared the food and the delivery partner who brought it.

Delivery partners are also sometimes taking advantage of the system. Goyal said Zomato removes about 5,000 delivery partners each month because of fraud. A common trick is for the delivery partner to mark an order as delivered in the app without actually handing the food to the customer. The app then thinks the order is complete and the customer never gets their food.

Another scam involves cash-on-delivery orders. Some delivery partners tell customers they do not have change, take the full amount, and then promise to come back with the correct change — but they never return. This means the customer is out money and the company must sort out the situation.

To manage all of this, Zomato uses something called a “karma score.” This score looks at the past behavior of both the customer and the delivery partner. If a customer has a history of frequent complaints and a delivery partner has a clean record, Zomato is more likely to believe the partner. If the delivery partner has many complaints against them, then Zomato is more likely to side with the customer.

Even with this score, Goyal says it is not always easy to know who is right. In many cases — between 50 to 70 per cent — Zomato refunds the customer while still letting the rider keep their job, especially when the evidence isn’t clear. The company prefers to take a loss rather than punish someone unfairly.

But when complaints against the same delivery partner keep repeating, that is when Zomato takes stronger action and removes them from the platform. Similarly, when photos clearly look edited or fake, Zomato will reject the refund.

Goyal’s remarks show that fraud in the food delivery world has become more creative, and sometimes even uses AI to make fake problems look real. Zomato, however, is trying to stay one step ahead, balancing fairness with protecting restaurants, customers and honest delivery partners.