Uber EatShitAndDie

Today I'm going to tell you about Uber Eats, why they totally suck donkey dick, how their offering is a colossal fuck-off swindle, and why I'd rather starve than use their shitting hagfish of a delivery service ever again.

 

Not childish at all.

First up, let me be clear that this isn't some sort of ideological rant. I don't have a problem with Uber as a taxi service or their business model generally, and I'm not one of these twats that accuses them of destroying livelihoods or 'owt.

(The Uber motorcar service is fine - frequently cheaper than a black cab or minicab, typically more convenient, and technically it works well because drivers generally follow the miracle of GPS rather than assuming they know better than the technology. Unless you have an aversion to the Toyota Prius or live in a rural area, it's a pretty good way to get around fairly quickly.)

Uber Eats, on the other hand, relies on the same technology, but to convey takeaways or groceries from one place to another. When one thinks about this, in order for the business model to work as it does with their taxi service, the same value must be placed on the transportation of a small carrier bag containing a kebab and chips as on the conveyance of a living breathing human. On that basis I was always skeptical and wasn't in a hurry to use the service. 

But, always willing to give things a go, we tried Uber Eats for the first time a couple of weeks ago and ordered food from the Caterham Charcoal Grill. It was the first time we'd had anything from there and it was pretty good - a notch above the typical high-street kebab takeaway, but - crucially to the story - one that isn't on Just Eat, which is normally my preferred app for ordering food late at night. 

Lulling me into a false sense of trust...

The Uber Eats app worked reasonably well, the order arrived quickly and the only thing I'd take issue with is that the price seemed maybe a little high, but hey-ho.

So, on Friday, having just returned from a short holiday in Wales, we decided to repeat the experience. And that's where shit started to go wrong. We ordered once again through the app, from the same place as last time, and waited for our food to arrive. And when I say 'waited', I mean waited.

And waited. And waited. 

And waited. 

Two hours passed. Godot showed up at one point, and we carried on waiting for our delicious kebabs. 

I checked the app and was surprised to see that the order was 'complete'. My card had been debited £37.25 and our food had been 'delivered' over an hour earlier.

We called up the takeaway directly to see what was going on and it was no fault of theirs at all. The Uber driver had picked up the order from them and 'delivered it'. Only he hadn't.

The human chatbots at Uber were singularly unhelpful, claiming that the driver had called us twice and waited outside for nine minutes. The truth is that there was just one missed call on my phone, from a withheld number, with no voicemail message, and the number of times our doorbell rang was exactly zero. There wasn't even the hoot of a horn to let us know a driver was here, nor an automated text containing the reg number so we could go outside to find him.

Call the Portuguese Police!

We still don't know exactly what the mysterious fuck happened to our food. Did the driver leave it outside in the road? If so it certainly wasn't anywhere near our building. Did he eat it himself? Did he share it amongst the poor? Inquiring minds want to know! It has been missing for three days now and its parents must be getting worried.

Could we get a refund on our £37.25? Of course not. It was all our fault apparently for not answering our door at the time the bell wasn't being rung, or not calling back a withheld number. Our fucking fault for trusting Uber Eats with a complex task like delivering highly-seasoned charcoal-grilled meat with a spicy chilli sauce. Yes, definitely the fault of the customer.

So we rang the Charcoal Grill up again and were surprised to learn that they actually did deliveries themselves. Did we want to reorder? Yes, please. What do we want? Exactly the same as we ordered via Uber Eats, please. How much will that cost? £26 delivered.

What?

£26. 

That's right. £11.25 less than it costs to have exactly the same thing delivered by Uber Eats. Indeed £11.25 less than it costs to not have the fucking thing delivered by them at all. 

Let that sink in. It's almost a 50% markup. It's not just added 'delivery costs' either - the menu on the App is priced far higher than if you take a look at their paper menu and call them up - £22 for the XL mixed special 'bit of everything' kebab, rather than the £17 it should be.  And they have the temerity to suggest adding a further tip. Fuck. Right. Off. 

Even if they had actually delivered my food to my house - which they fucking didn't - the knowledge that I can order it directly from the supplier at a more reasonable price, with all my money going to their staff rather than a third party would be reason enough to tell them to fuck the cunt off.

We'll use the Caterham Charcoal Grill again for sure, but Uber Eats is going straight onto the same boycott list as EasyJet. And there's no coming back from that particular circle of hell. Cunts.