It’s fair to say that Uber Eats has transformed the art of dining. After a long day’s work, why bother cooking that leftover chicken when you could have something marginally more fresh brought to you by some stranger on a bicycle?
But, this stranger on a bike may be giving you more than that hamburger you ordered over an hour ago. Alongside that now soggy burger he may have also brought some insider scope on the beloved food-delivery service to the table.
TikTok user Karl (@kingkarlemagne) posted a video two days ago to share what he believed to have just witnessed as a take-out delivery scam. Amassing over 201,800 views and 10,200 likes, the video shows Karl standing outside one Montreal restaurant.
Is this a new Uber Eats scam?
“I was just asking these three guys if they’re doing Uber, because they were just sitting outside the restaurant, and they just moved to the other side of the street,” Karl begins.
Covered in biking gear, Karl stands at the street corner and begins to film himself as he watches the entire ordeal. While doing so, Karl flips his phone camera to show a red sedan slowly driving down the street.
“They’re just sitting on the other side of the street,” Karl says.
Allegedly, prior to his filming, the men involved had already admitted to Karl both what they were doing and how. According to Karl, the men were purposefully making Uber Eats orders late and therefore increasing the prices of orders at this particular restaurant.
“They can drive a $3 order up to fifty bucks,” Karl says.
Then he explains exactly how it’s done.
How is this scam perpetrated?
“What you do with Uber is you go to the restaurant, you wait 10 minutes with the order, but you don’t go inside. Then you cancel it,” Karl says.
Karl explains that in doing so the driver gets $3 as it’s the store’s fault for not having it ready in time. This is where his explanation gets a little confusing.
“Then you have another phone and the order then comes into that phone and you make that wait 10 minutes. Then you get the $3 from that one and you say it wasn’t ready. Meanwhile, the order is in the restaurant for 20 minutes,” Karl says.
Basically, as every order gets canceled by one driver, it gets transferred to another driver in the nearby area. Then, according to Karl, the next driver will make more money than the first, causing both a massive delay in orders as well as a rise in overall cost.
Uber Eats addresses this issue on its website
Now, Uber Eats does have a slight cautionary note about this on their website. The company states that if an order takes more than 20 minutes than the intended wait time, it may be time to ask for a refund:
“If you have concerns about the status of your order, please reach out to us for support. For orders arriving 20+ minutes past the estimated delivery time range, we may provide a refund or issue Uber credits (depending on the delay) when you contact our support team.”
However this doesn’t exactly address the problem of purposeful scammers. Karl now continues to share exactly how the men around him are trying to make the extra few bucks as they linger around the storefront.
Karl flips the phone around and once again zooms in on the men sitting in their sedan.
“Why do you have three grown men in a car with phones? It says Uber on the back of your car,” Karl says.
Then Karl catches the phenomenon first-hand on his phone.
“I swear to God I just saw an order for like $8 and it just went for like $20 or something like $17 from here,” Karl says.
Karl then calls out the men on the other side of the road. He tells them that he watched the prices change himself. Karl proceeds to try and film one of the men as they walk into the restaurant, continuing to make conversation. Each time the man’s responses were near inaudible.
“I can’t wait, dude. I can’t wait,” Karl says.
Acting as if he’s almost pretending to be in on the scam, Karl flips the camera once more. Here he shows the other men walking away entirely.
“These guys are like scattering. These guys are like running a [expletive] CIA operation bro. It’s so funny dude,” Karl says.
What happens next?
The original man leaves the restaurant and Karl is quick to pin him back down with questions. Karl asks the man how much he received from finally picking up the order. The man states that the final cost of the order was $20. And by the look on Karl’s face, this was obviously a large increase from the original price.
“That’s good, that’s really good actually,” Karl says.
Karl continues to explain the exact ins-and-outs of the entire set-up, from where the men were parked to exactly how they sat around the restaurant waiting. He questions why the other two men are still waiting outside the car though an order was already picked up.
“Ohhh, probably because they’re gonna stay here outside the restaurant and just wait and do the scam,” Karl realizes.
Karl admits how much this maneuver increased his pay, but Karl still understands why this should continue. And so did other commenters.
Viewers weigh in on the scam
“So people get old cold food and the restaurant gets a bad rating. What a fulfilling way to make money,” one commenter states.
“Tell the restaurant staff because they’ll get bad reviews,” another commenter mentions.
And that’s exactly what Karl did. After trying once more to interact with this group of men, Karl pokes his head into the restaurant.
“Yo my guy, has the food been sitting for a long time?” Karl asks, “How long? 30 minutes? Wow, the food has been sitting for 30 minutes here in Montreal.”
Karl ends the video here, in utter shock at just how long the food has been prepared, proving that fault lies directly on the scammers.
As of October 2024, the average hourly pay for a U.S. Uber Eats driver is $18.75. However, the hourly wage can dramatically shift. But that being said, was creating this entire ordeal worth it just to make a few extra bucks?
Probably not. But it’s good to beware of moving forward. Next time that order takes longer than you may have hoped to arrive, it may be time to check-in and try to do some investigating yourself. Who knows what you may find.
@kingkarlemagne scammer trio in action? is it safe for food to sit at room temp for thirty minutes or more? #canada #montreal #restaurant #uber #fooddelivery ♬ original sound – kingkarlomagne
The Daily Dot reached out to Uber Eats via Uber’s press email. The Daily Dot also reached out to Karl (@kingkarlemagne) via TikTok comment and direct messages for comment.
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