Zomato delists ’fraud’ single-dish restaurant after social media users suspect shady business practices

Zomato Limited, in a social media post on platform X on Wednesday, November 20, announced that the food-delivery giant has identified and delisted potentially fraudulent restaurants from its platform after noticing conversations about these entities amongst social media users.

“We have noticed social media conversations around single-dish restaurants listed on Zomato,” said the food delivery platform. 

The company also said that it conducted an investigation into all other restaurants with a limited menu on the food delivery platform to comprehensively solve the issue. Zomato also said that the investigation looked into the listings of prohibited items.

“We have identified all such restaurants that were potentially fraudulent and have delisted them from our platform. To solve this more comprehensively, we have also investigated all other restaurants which have a very limited menu on Zomato and might have listed prohibited items or worked around a way to list prohibited items,” said Zomato in the post on platform X. 

Zomato Ltd shares closed 0.24 per cent higher at ₹271.35 at Tuesday's market close, compared to ₹270.70 the previous day. Stock markets were shut due to a public holiday on Wednesday, November 20.

The brand reiterated its policy of restaurants mandated to have a FSSAI license and Zomato actively blocking items like alcohol, cigarettes, cigars, or vapes from being listed. 

“As per our policy, all restaurants listed on Zomato need to have a FSSAI license and we also actively block items such as alcohol, cigarettes/cigars/vapes from being listed on our platform. However, the restaurants highlighted were able to game our checks by using generic food names such as ‘Naughty strawberry’,‘Merry Berry’,” said Zomato in the post. 

The company said that they have further strengthened their fraud checks to identify and avoid similar incidents in future, according to Zomato's post on platform X.