Maybe drivers aren’t stealing as many orders as people think
Today I almost witnessed how some “drivers stole my food” situations probably happen.
I had a large Uber Eats pickup at Tim Hortons (Toronto). As usual, Uber pickup drivers were basically the lowest priority while staff talked to every walk-in customer first, even though there was already a completed Uber order sitting on the counter that was most likely mine.
While I was waiting, there was a woman standing near the pickup area acting a bit strange. Maybe mental health issues, maybe substances, I don’t know. But her behavior was definitely off.
Then I hear her suddenly saying something like:
“Oh yeah, that’s probably my order. I ordered this morning and nobody delivered it, so I came to pick it up myself.”
She kept trying to convince the employee that the order was hers.
At that point I immediately stepped in because I had a bad feeling this was about to turn into a disaster. I told the employee:
“Hey, I’m here for the Uber pickup. Please give me the order because it’s getting cold already and customers later blame drivers for delays.”
Employee checked the app, confirmed it was my order, and handed it to me.
The interesting part:
the second the woman realized the order was leaving with the actual driver, she immediately turned around, walked away, and started mumbling random excuses.
And here’s why it got even weirder.
The dropoff was around 4 km away in a fairly wealthy neighborhood, and when I arrived there were two Teslas parked outside the house. Meanwhile, when I left the restaurant, I saw the woman walking away on foot. She hadn’t even arrived by car.
So this definitely wasn’t a situation where the real customer just walked over from nearby because the app was delayed.
But it made me realize how easily some orders could disappear if staff are rushed or don’t verify properly. And later everyone just assumes:
“the driver stole the food.”
Meanwhile sometimes random people may simply be walking in and trying to socially engineer pickups.