Hyderabad woman claims that Swiggy agent stole laptop, demanded nearly $179 as ransom

Awoman from the Indian city of Hyderabadrecently accused the Swiggy delivery boy of stealing the laptop and demanding a ransom of$178.91 (₹15,000) to return it.

Nishitha Gudipudi, acivil engineershared the details of the bizarre incident on her LinkedIn account. She explained that her husband booked a Swiggy Genie agent a few days agoto deliver his backpack from the office to another one locatedinthe Madhapur area.

The delivery boy collected the backpack, and in the middle of the delivery, he switched off his phone, Gudipudi said.

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“He basically stole the laptop, and initially, we thought, okay, partially error at our end too to use Genie to deliver the laptop, but how things took a turn after is what really surprised and scared us,” she added.

The LinkedIn post stated that when her husband tried to approach customer care, they also failed to locate the driver and the identityof the delivery agent. They sent two pictures asking the couple to identify which onecame to pick up the bag.

Swiggy's customer care executives weren’t able to detect the identity of the agent as theirsystem registers the Aadhar card or PAN card and lets anyone use those credentials.

One of the most shocking parts, according to Gudipudi, was that when they tried contacting the agent through WhatsApp, the delivery executive said, “I will check and let you know as my friend logged in from my identity.”

In the LinkedIn post, Gudipudi shared screenshots of the conversation that took place between her and the alleged thief on WhatsApp where he demanded the money. She also shared a picture of the man’s ID.

Swiggyhas not respondedto this incident yet.

In the comment section, one of the users said, "Crime - understood but was is it really reasonable and sensible on part of the person who decided to use a B2C service to handle movement of a backpack with company laptop /Assets in it? I think it was very casual on part of the gentleman who thought it is a good idea. Also, any package must be properly sealed for transfer irrespective of any service provider getting involved. The Swiggy person involved is most certainly wrong but decisions need to be reviewed too that led to this crime".

Another user, blaming the victim, said,"Good lesson learnt. To those asking why something as expensive as laptop was sent? This is a common situation, where the husband might have forgotten to take it home and in cities like Bangalore where it takes one hour to reach 5kms in peak traffic conditions, making a back and forth trip would consume half a day of an employee".

(With inputs from agencies)