• Source:JND
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A Bengaluru user has sparked a heated online discussion after calling out popular 10-minute delivery app Zepto for what he claims are “shady practices” during checkout, especially for Cash on Delivery (COD) orders. Sumukh Rao, a marketing professional, noticed something unusual when his friend repeatedly tried placing an order on Zepto. Despite selecting online payment, the app kept pushing her order into COD mode. That’s when Sumukh decided to dig deeper, and what he found left him shocked.

According to Rao, Zepto has made a subtle change in its order screen. The main payment button now shows “Pay Cash/UPI on delivery” as the default, instead of “Pay Online,” which users were used to earlier. He believes this is done on purpose to trick people into selecting COD without realising the consequences. “Seems harmless at first, because you would think you just have to pay the delivery executive via UPI instead of paying online. WRONG. This is where the dark pattern starts,” Rao wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Once the COD option is selected, Zepto quietly adds a Rs 15+GST ‘cash handling fee’ to the order. But here’s the catch: this fee doesn’t appear in the final order summary. Instead, a small message flashes for a few seconds after the user places the order and then disappears. “When you place the order with the COD option, Zepto automatically adds Rs 15+GST as ‘cash handling fees’ that most people wouldn’t notice,” he said.

Rao, who works in the direct-to-consumer (D2C) industry, says charging COD fees may make sense for regular e-commerce products like clothes or electronics, which often face delivery refusals. But applying the same rule to fast grocery delivery is, in his words, unfair and unnecessary. “But what business does it have on a quick commerce app???” he asked in his post, later calling out Zepto for its “garbage practices.”

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As Rao’s post gains traction, many users are now questioning whether this was a technical glitch or a carefully designed trick to push COD orders and quietly charge extra.

Watch The Viral Post:

The internet, without wasting any time, reacted to the viral video. One user wrote, "People who are questioning small vendors not accepting the UPI should see this also. That's how the direct and indirect strategy of marketing by companies." "I have stopped using @ZeptoNow for a long time now, by the time you understand their one modus operandi of scamming, they come up with a new one," a second user added. "Super simple solution: avoid Z like the plague. Can’t always be watching for these gotchas each time you place an order," a third user wrote.

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"This behaviour pattern from Zepto is so pervasive that it's clearly a cultural/personal issue with the founders. Maybe they come from traditional business families where business is always about picking the customers' pockets," added a fourth user. "This is the first time I’m seeing a service that has cash as its primary CTA and online as secondary. Only Zepto can do this," added a fifth user.