Foodpanda Philippines is under hot water after a trending Facebook post accuses them of unreasonable charges and delayed remittances.
The post came from a Facebook page of a small business called Mama Dith’s. In a post made last January 10, the page shared the reason why their Foodpanda shop was closed since last December 2021.
It’s said that Foodpanda uses a “2-week payment scheme”, which means that the store’s profit wouldn’t be remitted to them after 14 days. The post compared Foodpanda to Grab (Food), which sends the merchant’s cut of their sale on a daily basis.
What’s more, small businesses like Mama Dith’s are apparently charged with a 27% commission via the delivery app. That’s apart from the additional 12% that they started charging since June 2021 that’s apparently for Foodpanda’s tax. If that’s not enough, Foodpanda is apparently also charging additional Php1,000+ for “agency fees”, which is apparently not part of the original contract.
“SO, ANO NA LANG NATIRA SAMIN?”, says the Facebook post.
The page also complained about how hard it is to reach Foodpanda’s customer service when merchants are experiencing issues.
This post, which you can see below, has already garnered 26,000 reacts, 10,000 comments, and 22,000 shares as of writing. It’s also bombarded with sentiments from both merchants and riders, with one claiming that he only received Php82 compensation for four deliveries.
We’ve also seen a couple of small businesses expressing their complaints on their respective social media pages.
Meanwhile, one Foodpanda seller confirmed to us that the app is indeed charging them 27%, 12%, and an additional Php1,000 for sales that are more than Php4,000. That’s on top of the 8% non-VAT tax that the businesses have to pay to the BIR.
Such issues are pushing merchants, riders, and even some consumers to leave the food delivery service.
Foodpanda Philippines is yet to release a statement regarding the issue.