Uber cheats – how a multinational stole my Saturday night takeaway

This is not my usual type of blog. I’m not going to bang on about Viking berserkers or Robin Hood novels. I’m writing this because I’m furious with Uber Eats, who stole nearly £30 from me at the weekend, and there’s nothing I can do about it. This is a warning to everyone who orders food to be delivered, and particularly to those of you who use Uber Eats.

I couldn’t be bothered to cook on Saturday night, so I looked up delivery options on my phone and thought I would get a KFC for the family (my kids are big fans). I went through the ordering process with Uber Eats, filling out many forms and clearly giving my mobile number and home address. I paid £26.58 for the food and delivery charges and, because I was in a good mood, I added a tip of £2.65. Then I sat down to wait.

A couple of hours later, I got a call from the Uber Eats driver, who claimed he was waiting out side my house. He wasn’t. He was about a mile and a half away, five minutes’ drive at most. I told him to come to my house. He refused. Apparently he was already on the move by then, heading to his next destination. We discussed briefly my coming to find him. He didn’t know the area well but thought he was “quite near a Shell patrol station”.

I thought about going out in my car on a rainy Saturday night, trying to find a guy who was moving about the town delivering food, to see if I could locate him, grab my KFC and feed my family. I decided this was a stupid idea, and again asked the driver again to swing by my house. That is, after all, the point of delivered food. He refused and said it wasn’t worth his while – and that he had been to my house. But you haven’t, I said. “I’ve been to the house indicated on my app,” he said. “Maybe,” I said, “but that isn’t my house. I do know where I live.”

And that was it. He briefly suggested ordering again but I was getting quite steamed by now. It got worse. Not only did we not get supper – no biggie, tbh – but they charged us for it. That IS a bloody great biggie in my book. I have had many email exchanges with Uber Eats since then and someone from New York tried to call me but rang off before I could answer. I phoned them back but it was an automated message. And despite repeated angry emails to Uber Eats, via the complaints system, all they would say was that they had investigated this and the driver had been to my house, and I should have kept my mobile phone to hand so the driver could contact me.

I pointed out several times that, no, he hadn’t been to my house, and that I had actually had a conversation with him on my phone. And I can prove it as it’s on my “recent calls”. There was no helpline or other human to speak with, just the anonymous moron at the end of the email. So . . . It’s Monday morning and I’m still fuming. And I’d urge everyone to avoid using Uber Eats unless you want to lose your money. After all, they stole £30 from me.

I don’t think they did it deliberately. A mistake was made somewhere along the line, I suspect with their food-ordering app, which is seriously clunky. But the thing that really boils my piss is that they told openly me it was their POLICY not to refund customers who did not receive their food.

Anyway, I had to get that off my chest.

If you have had a similar experience with Uber Eats, please let me know. If it happed to me, I bet there are lots of other people who have been ripped off by them too. You can get in touch using the Contact form above. And before you say it, I know it is only £30, and I should just shrug and get on with my life. But it is the principle of the thing. And I don’t like big powerful multinational companies doing over the little guy just because they can.

But I guess I will have to face up to the truth of it. Uber Eats stole my money and there is absolutely nothing I can do to get it back. Except ask you, the reader, to think about this little story next time you are ordering food from them. Maybe don’t order any food from them ever again. I certainly won’t.

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Nick+Brett
Nick+Brett
3 years ago

Well, I’ve never used Uber Eats, but I can now promise I never will.

Jules
Jules
3 years ago

I’ve not had this amount of issue with them, but on reflection they have never got an order fully correct.

There’s always a portion of fries or a drink missing.

We haven’t used them for ages and won’t again, to be honest.