Given how popular food delivery has become, it’s understandable that diners are constantly on the lookout for ways to hack the system for free food.
The average Gen Z consumer orders about 2.3 delivery meals per week. During these orders, they may use things like loyalty points or system glitches to reduce or completely eliminate their order price.
Some of these price reductions are sanctioned by the companies offering them. Others are not—and more still are morally dubious. One user on TikTok is calling out the latter methods after one customer’s tactic for getting free food threw him under the bus.
How Did This Customer Try To Scam Uber Eats?
In a video posted to TikTok, an Uber Eats driver named Dave (@dave.solves3) explains that he has a high “96%, 97%” satisfaction rating on the app. However, a day prior to recording this video, he had a customer complaint.
“I picked up an order and delivered it,” the TikToker starts. “When I walked in, I said, ‘Hey, here’s your food. Thank you very much.’ And the woman—it was at a restaurant, it was a pizza place—the woman started bragging about how she ‘got the order for free, free delivery.’”
Dave says the woman claimed that the order only cost her about a dollar.
“She goes, ‘Watch. I’m gonna get everything back’—and apologized for going to put in a complaint about me,” Dave says.
“And I said, ‘Why would you do that?’ And she said, ‘Because you’re being argumentative,’” the TikToker continues. “I was like, ‘Only now! You just told me you’re going to hang me out to dry for no reason other than so that you can have a good laugh!’”
The Uber Eats Driver’s Response
While Dave states he’s not sure if and how he’s going to respond, he says that he has an idea of a potential method of retribution.
“She worked at a restaurant,” he says. “She can complain on me one time. I can complain to the restaurant every day about her, whether it’s true or not.”
Noting that doing so might not be “worth my time,” he says that one of the main issues, in his view, is that food delivery companies consistently side with customers over drivers.
“Whether it’s true or not, people can complain, and the apps, all of them, will believe the customer rather than you,” he says. “It doesn’t matter that you picked it up on time, you delivered early. Everything was good. That doesn’t matter. The customer said you did something. Then you did it.”
He closes by asking viewers what they would do in a similar situation.
Is This Common?
Dave isn’t the first to complain about this.
According to Incognia’s 2025 Gig Economy Frontline Report, “refund abuse” makes up almost half of all consumer-side food delivery fraud. This is defined as “when a customer commits fraud by asking for a refund for a product or service they actually received.”
Sometimes, customers simply claim they didn’t get their food or allege that their driver behaved inappropriately. Other times, customers will go so far as to use AI to generate photos of alleged issues with their meals.
If a driver finds themselves in this situation—where a customer has reported a fake issue—there’s often little they can do. While Uber has policies in place to reduce fraud on the platform, drivers report that they’re often not given a chance to dispute claims against them. That said, many allege that the occasional fraudulent report is not a problem and that reports only tend to matter if there are many over time.
Consequently, many drivers suggest highlighting the issue with support in order to have your dispute recorded, then simply carrying on with your deliveries.
BroBible reached out to Uber via email and Dave via TikTok and Facebook direct message.