SINGAPORE — Coffee chain Butter Bean has launched an investigation following claims by a food delivery worker that its employees had refused to pay after eating food from an order that was mistakenly delivered to them. 

Giving an account of the incident on Facebook group Complaint Singapore on Wednesday (Dec 28), an online user named "Duong Hoan" said that the food was dropped off by mistake to a Butter Bean store that was located at Funan mall. The order was meant to be delivered to a shop unit on a different floor in the mall.

Duong Hoan realised the food was wrongly delivered after hearing from the customer who made the order in the first place, saying the package was not received.

Duong Hoan then reportedly returned to Butter Bean within 20 minutes of making the wrong delivery, hoping to rectify the situation, but the food had already been consumed by staff members there.

However, when contacted, the company told TODAY that the timing of the worker's return was much later.

Apparently, Duong Hoan appealed to the Butter Bean employees to return the food box or pay up for the cost of the food, which amounted to S$28, but they allegedly “refused to do so”.

"(I tried) to explain to her that I'm (only) a food delivery guy, please return the food box or pay me for the food," Duong Hoan said.

The delivery worker then lamented about the incident on social media, saying: "I'm totally disappointed with these people. I now need to compensate S$28 to the shop. My day is spoiled."

Facebook users in the comments section sympathised with Duong Hoan’s disappointment over the alleged actions of Butter Bean employees, saying that they should not have accepted the food, let alone consume the food from an order that was not theirs.

Tagging Butter Bean’s Facebook account in the comment, one person wrote: “Can you look into this? How is it right that your staff accepted a food box when they know that nobody ordered?

"Surely the receipt (has) the name of the person that ordered and they can clearly see that it is not theirs… Please look into this matter. Have a heart, S$28 is a lot for this rider.”

Duong Hoan’s Facebook post has since been removed.

BUTTER BEAN LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION

Responding to media queries, Butter Bean said that it was informed of the incident on Dec 28 at 12.47pm by Duong Hoan and had launched an investigation into it.

It said that closed-circuit television (CCTV) recording from its Funan mall outlet showed a female delivery personnel entering its store at 9.59am and handing a food package containing a box of chicken to the employees there, while mentioning that it was for them. 

Butter Bean said that its employees were unable to track the order as there was no delivery order or receipt attached to the food package. Its employees assumed that it was from one of its regular customers who had been sending snacks to the store. 

The company also said the CCTV recordings also showed that the same woman returned to the store only at 12.28pm after realising that she had delivered the food to the wrong unit. This was almost 2.5 hours after the food was delivered, as opposed to Duong Hoan's earlier mention of 20 minutes.

Since one of the staff members had partially consumed the food, they were unable to return the package to her, Butter Bean explained.

“We would like to reassure the public that it was never our staff’s intention to retain the food. On the other hand, our staff should not have made an assumption that it was from the regular customer, too,” it added.

“Through this incident, we have also stepped up on our training and reiterated to our team to be more mindful of unidentified deliveries in order to prevent similar incidents from happening again.”

The coffee chain, owned by BreadTalk Group, has since reached out to Duong Hoan and said that it will follow up closely to resolve the matter amicably.