Let’s face it: Uber Eats is for the desperate.
It’s for that moment when you’re drunk at 3 a.m. and need fried chicken gizzards with two sides of tartar sauce. It’s for Sunday mornings when you’re in pajamas and can’t even muster up the energy to brush your teeth. It can also be for families who don’t have time to prep meals every now and then.
That’s what happened to Angel Diaz, who told WFLA that she never received her $60 order of food from Glory Days Grill just five miles away from her home. The Lutz woman, who was ordering food for her family’s meal that evening, said that her order was canceled without refund. Uber told her the driver claimed he couldn’t reach her, but Diaz said that wasn’t true, adding that no one called or knocked on her door.
“I was shocked when the food didn’t show up,” she told the station’s BOTB-winning investigative reporter Shannon Behnken. And before you make any assumptions, Diaz does not come off as a total stoner, OK?
Behnken — who normally looks into big-time fraud in her work that protects consumers — dove in and uncovered a hilarious online forum (uberpeople.net) where alleged Uber Eats drivers offer advice and support to each other. Some threads share tips on how to get away with eating a food pickup.
“Uber pays me to eat the food. If pax orders to condo and doesn’t provide apt # and buzz code, I call twice. If their phone is off or they don’t pick up, free meal,” wrote one user on a thread titled “Have you ever taken the food? (Steal the food).”
“If I arrive at dropoff location and there is NO parking, I call. If eater doesn’t meet me outside, free meal,” the user added. “Capiche?”
Another user said they have no qualms about keeping the food when “Uber shenanigans” like folks not coming to the door happen.
“How is it that all other deliver jobs I’ve done (food and parcel), nobody ever takes more than 30 seconds to answer the door but yet these Uber degenerates take forever?” the user posted. “It’s like this service was made for whacked out late night coke heads to just order food and pass out. Answer the door or it’s in my belly.”
Behnken noted that reps from the delivery service followed up on many of the claims (and also offered Diaz a refund), but stories on other forums are either sad or ridiculously entertaining depending on the lens through which you view the world.
On the surface, food not arriving at a destination looks like a simple case of Uber Eats drivers eating something they didn’t pay for, but others have considered the rideshare company’s reputation for paying low wages and suggested that some drivers do it to survive (Uber Eats drivers are paid only a pickup fee, a drop off fee and for mileage, but can also be tipped, according to Mic).
“In the event of stolen food, it could be because the food is worth more than they would make off the trip,” the website wrote.
Now that’s disappointing, but that won’t stop you from opening the app in your time of need, will it?
This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 6, 2018.
