A Foodpanda deliveryman has been blacklisted by the delivery company after he allegedly entered a customer's flat without permission and sexually harassed her by asking inappropriate questions.

The incident allegedly occurred around 10:15pm on Aug. 6, according to the customer's boyfriend, one Kenneth Ong.

Deliveryman asked if she was wearing a bra and alluded to sex

According to Ong, 29, his 24-year-old girlfriend — who prefers to be identified only as Qiao — placed an order on Foodpanda, and selected the option to pay using cash upon delivery.

When the deliveryman arrived at the house -- an apartment at the Textile Centre at Jalan Sultan -- with the order, he allegedly entered without permission and waited directly outside of Qiao's room for his payment.

The man allegedly then asked Qiao, who was wearing a singlet as she had just awoken from a nap, whether she was wearing a bra.

Ong said that Qiao was shocked and told the man to take a step back and wait for her to get the money.

However, the man then allegedly followed Qiao into her room, and after she warned him to not get any closer to her, he asked how much it would cost to "go for a short time", alluding to buying sex.

Qiao then screamed at the deliveryman to leave, and the man allegedly laughed it off nonchalantly before leaving.

Ong unhappy with Foodpanda's response to situation

Ong shared with Mothership his displeasure with Foodpanda's handling of the situation.

He said that it was only after his third attempt to report the matter to Foodpanda that he finally got a serious reply, with the local head of customer service calling him on Saturday (Aug. 8) to apologise and inform him that the rider had been dismissed.

Responding to Mothership's queries, a Foodpanda spokesperson said:

"We place the safety of our customers as a priority and take a zero tolerance stance on harassment in any form and have been investigating the matter.

We have recommended that Mr Ong lodge a police report and will be offering our utmost support in investigations. The rider is currently blacklisted from working with us."

Ong felt that his first attempts at reporting the situation were poorly-handled on Foodpanda's side, sharing that a Foodpanda customer service officer had initially replied to Ong's message with a generic response about a wrong order delivery, rather than realising that the issue was about harassment.

And even though Ong agrees that dismissing the rider is a fair outcome, he stated that he is still not pleased with how Foodpanda handled the situation, as they blacklisted the rider without following up with him directly or doing a proper investigation about what happened.

"By just terminating him, you're actually choosing the easy way out," Ong said.

Qiao traumatised, doesn't plan to order food anytime soon

Ong said that Qiao has since moved out of the flat, but that the move had already been previously planned and was not due to this situation.

However, he said that Qiao does not plan to use food delivery services anytime soon, as she is worried about people knowing her address.

Ong stated that Qiao is not planning on filing a police report, as she is quite traumatised from the experience and does not want to go through the difficult experience of having to repeat what happened again.

He stated that, as her boyfriend, he wants to protect her, and he is sharing this story to bring awareness to the incident, because it could happen to anyone, or may have even happened to others, but others might not feel comfortable voicing out.

Top photo via SG Asia City.