'Foodpanda': A Champion in Wrongdoing

Online shopping or delivery in Bangladesh has become synonymous with misery and fear. Order a nice shirt online, open the delivery box, and find potatoes or onions inside—this kind of outrageous yet absurd scam is hardly rare here. After watching the creative thievery of fly-by-night operations like Evaly, ordinary people now treat any "online page" or online service as a guaranteed scam. Yet even in this climate of deep distrust, customers held on to a distinct sense of confidence in Foodpanda. The main reason was that it was a German multinational. People assumed that among all the fly-by-night outfits, this foreign company would at least be professional and principled in its service.

That trust has now been shattered. Foodpanda is proving that while its branding may be foreign, it has learned the art of the con in a thoroughly local style. After conduct this unethical and predatory, the question in informed circles is obvious: will Foodpanda end up like Evaly or any of the country's other cheap scam operations? People are perhaps waiting for exactly that humiliating collapse.

Arrest Warrants Against Top Officials

The clearest proof of how accomplished these people are at theft and forgery came in the country's own courts. On serious charges of fraud and embezzlement of Tk 3.80 crore, a Dhaka court issued arrest warrants against Foodpanda Bangladesh Limited's Managing Director Syeda Ambarin Reza and five other senior officials. The complaint filed by the owner of "Protein and Perishable" (PNP) alleges that against large orders worth lakhs of taka, Foodpanda deposited into the bank sums of Tk 1, Tk 5, or at most Tk 100—laughable, negligible amounts. According to the complaint, this was no error: fake vouchers and fake return slips were generated to carry out this looting. How the senior leadership of a foreign company can operate as outright robbers in broad daylight—that, the complainant argues, is the proof.

Riders: Back-Breaking Work, Discriminatory Pay

The main wheel of Foodpanda's business turns on the sweat and blood of poor riders. Yet the company treats them in ways that would shame medieval slavery. To put food in customers' hands, these delivery workers work day and night, navigating brutal traffic and insane roads on bicycles and motorbikes at serious risk to their lives. Accidents are routine; limbs break, and some are crippled for life. And yet—astonishingly—despite working for a global company, these desperately poor workers have no basic safety net and no insurance.

A rider can bleed to death on the road and the company loses no sleep over it. All it wants is ever-growing profit. Meanwhile, it plays one filthy game after another: unfairly slashing rating points, suddenly deducting pay, blocking riders' accounts at will without a shred of evidence or explanation. Riders have struck in Dhaka, Sylhet, and across the country against this brutal exploitation. The company's helpline responded with misbehavior and outright abuse.

Cheating Customers, Serving Bad Food

It is not only workers who get burned. Foodpanda is remarkably skilled at cheating customers. Serving rotten, stale, low-quality food, taking advance payment online and then vanishing without delivering anything, making customers chase refunds until their shoes wear thin—these are everyday occurrences on the platform. How low does theft have to sink before a company gets fined by the Consumer Rights Protection Directorate in Khulna for selling Tk 28 tissue paper at Tk 30? And that is not the end of it.

They have introduced a novel, silent robbery called a "platform fee." Under the blatantly false pretext of app development, this greedy operation—which came here claiming to be about service—quietly picks people's pockets with every order.

Evading State Revenue and VAT

Alongside squeezing customers and workers, Foodpanda has also cheated the state itself. By presenting itself merely as a "technology service" company, it tried to mislead the country's VAT authorities. But the investigation caught them. It uncovered VAT evasion worth nearly Tk 3.40 crore. According to the findings, they do not even deposit the tax on their office rent to the government treasury.

A case against them is also pending at the Competition Commission. What is striking is that they are not content to cheat the state quietly on their own; they actively coach and encourage partner restaurants on their platform to evade VAT, doing serious damage to public revenue.

Global Image and Future Crisis

Hanging the shiny signboard of parent company "Delivery Hero" and setting up shop here, Foodpanda has essentially arrived as a villain in the guise of a service. Behind the international label, this cheap fraud proves that there is now no meaningful difference between Foodpanda and any low-grade scam page in this country. The court's arrest warrant has landed hard on their fake image.

After this grim record—cheating customers, pushing riders toward death without insurance, and evading the state treasury—the writing on the wall is clear. Like Evaly and E-Orange, they too may soon have to wrap up and clear out. Whether Foodpanda can erase the label of champion in fraud and wrongdoing, or whether the final bell will ring for them as a despised con operation—time and the courts will likely make that clear very soon.