Uber Eats driver outsmarts customers’ scheme to score free food — and takes it for herself: ‘Ain’t gonna play me’

She made these fast-food fraudsters eat dirt.

Stealing someone’s takeout delivery order is in bad taste. Still, it’s a recurring malfeasance suffered by foodies nationwide, from the Big Apple to the Lone Star State and beyond. 

But when a no-nonsense Uber Eats courier caught a couple of creeps trying to swipe her customer’s chow, she quickly quashed the scheme, leaving the would-be thieves hungry and humiliated. 

“You ain’t gonna play me,” Arlene, a delivery woman from Los Angeles, declared in a viral confessional, recounting the incident to over 1.2 million video viewers. 

“I picked up an order for $10 for Chick-fil-A going one mile,” she explained. 

With the grub in tow, the redhead pulled up to its final destination, an apartment building on a bustling main street with tons of foot traffic. Upon arrival, Arlene learned she’d need an access code to enter the high-rise and hand off the fare. 

But her repeated phone calls and messages to the customer went unanswered, and Arlene grew suspicious. 

“I’m standing outside, and there are these two guys standing outside next to their car, kicking the s- -t,” she remembered, adding that Uber Eats cancels deliveries that are not accepted by recipients within an eight-minute grace period. 

After waiting the allotted time and notifying the company of the patron’s unresponsiveness, Arlene claims a representative advised her to leave the food in a safe space near the main entrance of the residence and snap a quick photo of the drop-off. 

“As I’m dropping it off and taking the picture, the two guys who were by their car start walking towards the door,” she said. “I’m like, ‘Hi. Is this your order?’ and they’re like, ‘No, but we live here.’”

She then asked the pair to let her into the building, but when they refused, claiming tenants aren’t allowed to grant strangers access inside, alarm bells began ringing in Arlene’s head.  

“I clock it. [They] want the f- -king food,” she said. “I [take] that f- -king food and I take it back to my car because if anybody’s gonna take that f- -king food, it’s gonna be me.”

“You’re not about to mess up my f- -king metrics just because you f- -king playing some f- -king s- -t,” Arlene vowed, referencing her Uber Eats ratings. 

The metrics are performance indicators used to measure a delivery person’s efficiency and reliability, focusing on acceptance rates, cancellation rates, and customer satisfaction. 

“Your overall rating comes from your last 100 ratings from restaurant staff and delivery customers,” Uber explains. “They can rate you with a thumbs up or a thumbs down.”

The feedback can also influence a courier’s standing within the company, making them eligible for perks and higher-paying opportunities. 

And although the imprint explicitly assures its drivers, “No, you won’t receive a rating for any canceled or unaccepted deliveries,” Arlene wasn’t willing to take any chances. 

“I pick up the food, go back to my car, and call Uber, I said, ‘Hey, there’s nowhere safe to leave this order. What do you want me to do?” she recalled. “They said, ‘You can just dispose of it. You’ll still get paid. Have a good day.”

“Dope. I got f- -king free lunch,” Arlene raved. “And the guys that were walking into the apartment building, the minute that I picked up that f- -king food, they went back to their car to go kick the f- -king s- -t again.”