Story By:  Sofija Dizdarevik, Sub-Editor:  Michael Leidig, Agency:  Newsflash

A seven-year-old girl has been left “traumatised” after a glitch in an online food app resulted in her ordering 42 chicken fillet meals delivered by separate couriers all demanding payment.

The youngster in Cebu City in the Philippines placed the order with Food Panda which resulted in the narrow street where she lives being congested with delivery riders, all expecting to be paid.

She was trying to help her unwell grandmother by organising a midday meal, ordering the items at 11am last Wednesday.

She used a parent’s smartphone to order the food online for herself and her grandmother.

The girl’s neighbour Dann Kayne Suarez, 33, told Newsflash: “This happened around 11am. I was in my room, enjoying a free day from work when I heard shouting outside.

“I went outside and found that our neighbour, she’s about seven years old, had ordered multiple meals online.

“Due to the pandemic, the child cannot go to school, so she is at home looking after her grandmother while her parents are at work.”

Kayne Suarez said: “The moment the child ordered the food, the internet wasn’t working very well and there was time lag that kept prompting the app to display an error message.

“When the error continued to appear, the girl placed the same order after every error. Unknowingly, those became a valid order which she was totally unaware of.”

He said he checked her checked her phone and saw she had ordered 42 meals, although some had apparently not turned up.

He added: “There were over 30 drivers in front of the house from the 42 orders that were made. Others might have been cancelled by riders, but certainly over 30 turned up.”

The drivers agreed it was not the child’s fault and that she should not be held to blame for the error, and he then arranged for locals to join them on the street to buy up some of the surplus meals.

“I bought the rest of the few remaining meals so the drivers could leave and so the poor girl was not too traumatised. Then I asked my friends to buy my orders.”

He added: “I know how they felt. Many of those drivers are fathers with families to support, and I wanted to help them.”

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