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Businesses Crime

How Two Florida Men Scammed 'Uber Eats' Out of $1 Million (msn.com) 51

Posted by EditorDavid from the eating-out dept.
An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from Business Insider: Two men from the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area scammed Uber Eats out of more than $1 million over 19 months, local police say.

The suspects carried out the scheme — which began in January 2022 — by creating fake accounts on the Uber Eats app to act as both the customer and courier when placing grocery orders, the Broward County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. This worked because Uber Eats provides couriers with prepaid cards they can use to purchase up to $700 to complete customers' orders.

Police claim the suspects would show up as couriers for their fake grocery orders before canceling them and using the prepaid cards to purchase gift cards at the stores.
According to the sheriff's office, "On January 24, 2023, detectives conducted a surveillance operation and observed Morgan and Blackwood travel to 27 different Walgreens committing fraud that totaled a $5,013.28 loss for Uber that day. "
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How Two Florida Men Scammed 'Uber Eats' Out of $1 Million More

How Two Florida Men Scammed 'Uber Eats' Out of $1 Million

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  • rationale (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 )
    Uber Eats must have had some reason for doing it this way - maybe to screw the restaurant out of something ?
    • I figured they had something setup to pay the restaurant automaticlly without the deliver having to do the paying.
      So what happens like in a recent pictures when they ubereats does not pick up the food? Does the restaurant end up having to take the loss?

    • Re:rationale (Score:5, Informative)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday October 16, 2023 @12:12AM (#63927841)
      It's because a lot of restaurants won't do business with them because what ends up happening is you get a bad delivery service from someone who's not an employee and they blame the restaurant and leave bad reviews online that hurt the restaurant business.

      My understanding is that with the exception of some of the big chains that have special deals with them restaurants hate Uber eats for just this reason.

      Anyway by giving them prepaid cards they can show up and pick up the food pretending to be the person that ordered it.

    • Wow ! the world just got really bad.
      Before that, we used to have a single "Florida Man" doing crazy stuff.
      Now they are two,and even worse, they work together.
      Humanity is doomed.

      • Wow ! the world just got really bad.
        Before that, we used to have a single "Florida Man" doing crazy stuff.
        Now they are two,and even worse, they work together.
        Humanity is doomed.

        It's even worse than you think. Entire families [apnews.com] from Florida are involved in doing crazy stuff.

    • All of the replies about restaurants are off-topic, since this issue is about delivery from a store.

      For those orders, the "courier" goes into a store and buys stuff off the shelf. They need to be provided some instrument to purchase things, since only a fool would front their own money to a corporation and bear the risk of cancellation themselves. On the other hand, you have this situation where both the courier's purchases and the order are made in bad faith. This is why Uber uses instruments with fixed a

  • $700 per shop is loaded? what does uber think people are buying on grocery to load at least $700 per shop?

    • Have you seen the price of food lately? It's not unusual for someone who shops for a large family to have a bill of $300-$400. Presumably, the cards were for multiple customers or multiple trips.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      They likely assume a courier might be buying for multiple customers on the same trip.

    • Don't they do several orders at once? A single family could easily be around $200

  • They'll get diabetes from eating $1 million of restaurant food.

  • Remember Superman 3? Well, no. Nobody does. Anyway, Richard Pryor is a computer genius who runs a scam where he funnels fractions of a cent remainders off into an account. He eventually gets caught. But this was based on a real world case.

    How they could expect to get away with that much is astounding.

    • How they could expect to get away with that much is astounding.

      The fine article makes clear it is about, "Two men from the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area".

    • Remember Superman 3? Well, no. Nobody does. Anyway, Richard Pryor is a computer genius who runs a scam where he funnels fractions of a cent remainders off into an account. He eventually gets caught. But this was based on a real world case.

      How they could expect to get away with that much is astounding.

      Ever see Office Space [wikipedia.org]? (that's obviously rhetorical) Same plan, and they actually reference Superman 3. Of course they botch the implementation with a decimal place error and the account grows *way* too fast. Of course, your commentary applies to that film too.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thomn8r ( 635504 )

      Anyway, Richard Pryor is a computer genius who runs a scam where he funnels fractions of a cent remainders off into an account.

      Yeah, they did it in Office Space

  • This worked because Uber Eats provides couriers with prepaid cards they can use to purchase up to $700 to complete customers' orders.

    No: it worked because they could cancel the orders. Chargebacks are the bane of merchants [wikipedia.org] the world over.

  • How was this not stopped rather quickly? Their system knows the order was cancelled but the driver spent money. How is this not automatically reconciled at the end of the month with the driver left owing Uber money? How many accounts did these guys run through. I can't imagine they don't have a bunch of patsies helping them with signing up accounts.

    • other scams are to just say customer not home (for age check items) or can't get into building.
      for the customer to say it was not dropped off.
      use an stolen CC card to get an uber eats gift card and then run up an big order.

      • Well that involves whole other theft that funds the scam when you have stolen CCs. This just seems weird that Uber wouldn't catch on before losing over a million. I would have thought they'd have a system that auto flags any accounts with higher than normal cancellations but still picked up the order and in this case not even the items for the order but gift cards.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      From the sound of it they were creating fake Uber profiles. So the real story here is Uber's identity management sucks.

      Whatever claims they make, they clearly have no idea who their drivers actually are. I am not saying the traditional cab/courier companies are doing any better, or anything mind you. Just saying be cautious out there you really don't know who is coming to your door or who you are getting into a car with. Sure Uber says they don't have several out standing warrants and a rap-sheet a mile l

      • Yeah the scenario you describe sounds kind of like the scam in the final season of Better Call Saul they start by targeting them at the bar and getting them wasted.
  • To somebody makes them even more like an employee in the irs's view. I really wish we would enforce laws in this country.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by HBI ( 10338492 )

      There are a few bright lines for the IRS, a couple are providing office space and dictating hours. The company credit card is not on the list.

  • This doesn't sound like a "scam." If Uber Eats is dumb enough to hand out free credit cards to strangers (after all, Uber has fought tooth and nail to claim that their drivers are not "employees") and then those strangers use the cards to enrich themselves... well, it sounds like Uber eats just learned an important lesson. The Broward County Sheriff's Office should have laughed at Uber Eats, then told them to fuck off out of the Sheriff's Office so they could solve some real crimes.

    • Protecting the wealth of the elite and the corporations they own *is* a real crime for police.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      While I do think law enforcement should actually engage in a little victim blaming for the sake of prioritization. Its still illegal conversion and its still a crime. I don't think they should 'ignore it'.

      If you show up and say "hey someone stole my gift cards, by the way my business model is contracting individuals I know only thru a self completed web form to handle large sums of negotiable assets"

      I mean yes that should maybe be net with an eyeroll and "well I guess we will make sure all the deputies kno

    • "If Uber Eats is dumb enough to hand out free credit cards to strangers"

      If the "independent contractor" has to bear the risk of order cancellation happening after purchasing the items out of pocket no one will take those orders.

      • If the "independent contractor" has to bear the risk of order cancellation happening after purchasing the items out of pocket no one will take those orders.

        And that's OK. Maybe it wasn't ever a great business model.There's nothing in the constitution that says dumb business ideas are required to be profitable, or that society should pick up their cost.

  • Greed has no bounds.... (Score:3)

    by Bob_Who ( 926234 ) on Monday October 16, 2023 @05:47AM (#63928245) Journal
    Greed has no bounds was what I thought when I tried Uber Eats because they offered me a $25 dollar coupon and FREE delivery towards my first purchase. When looking at all of my local options (Jack-in-the box, Panda Express, Burger King) a handful of places, there was nothing I could buy that came anywhere close to a reasonable price with that $25.00 off. Not even close. Anything was marked up so high it was laughable. So, the $25 would have cost me. Meanwhile, the fuzz busted these guys for $5,000 of fraud in one day, after stealing a million dollars in total. That means that they were at that scam for quite some time before getting nabbed. Does Uber really have that much volume with such bad prices or is this a fake news advertisement? If its true, remember when stealing from Visa, Walgreens, and Uber to quit when you're $800k ahead....no need to get greedy

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