In a strange online shopping twist, a Reddit user recently shared his uncomfortable experience of getting two free Ridge Pumpkins after ordering Skore Skin Thin Condoms from Swiggy Instamart. The post, titled “Swiggy Instamart gave me two pumpkins for free plus the condoms I asked for,” quickly went viral in the r/india subreddit, garnering over 4,100 upvotes and 223 comments.
The user, who goes by the handle u/odysseus-23, expressed surprise at the unwanted addition to his order, noting that there was no option to remove the hillside pumpkins from the purchase. He described the interaction with the delivery man as embarrassing, noting that “I had an embarrassing conversation with the delivery man.”
To illustrate his point, the Redditor shared screenshots of his bills and photos of the unusual array of orders, confirming that free hillside pumpkin was included as an extra with no way to decline the free veggies.
The incident sparked a wave of humor across the platform, as users shared hilarious remarks. Some joked about ‘falling into the pumpkin’, while others speculated whether this strange pairing was a deliberate marketing strategy by Swiggy Instamart to attract attention.
One user commented, “I’m sure instamart is intentionally sending out these bundled free items. I think they know people will share them on social media and it will get more engagement.”
This is not the first time Swiggy has aggressively sent something to a customer. In October last year, a product designer from Bengaluru, Chandra Ramanujan, criticized Swiggy Instamart online after they automatically added free tomatoes to his order without giving him the option to remove them.
He described this practice as a “dark pattern,” which refers to design techniques that manipulate users into taking actions they may not want to take. In his post on X (formerly Twitter), he expressed his frustration, stating that he did not want the tomatoes and found it unacceptable to add them to his shopping cart without his approval. He shared screenshots of his command to illustrate the issue.
Dark mode is a tactic used by websites or apps to manipulate users into doing things they may not want to do.