Uber Eats Driver Gets One-Star Review for Refusing to Deliver Meth

Some meth but not the exact meth that police found in the package the Uber Eats driver refused to deliverPhoto: Phil Walter / Staff (Getty Images)

Recently, a drug dealer near Sydney, Australia, tried out an innovative method of delivering drugs to customers: Uber Eats. And on its face, it seemed so simple. Customers could order their drugs, the driver would show up to deliver the package and the dealer would get paid through the app. Except it didn’t quite work out that way.

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The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the driver got suspicious when she arrived at the restaurant and was handed a plastic bag that was closed with a black zip tie. According to the customer, the bag supposedly contained toothpaste, which was apparently a red flag since they were paying a $16 delivery fee for such an inexpensive item. So instead of taking the bag to the delivery address, she took it to the police.

Officers soon found that there was indeed a toothpaste tube in the bag, but the tube contained meth. As you can imagine, the dealer was pretty upset that their delivery driver canceled the job after pickup and failed to take their product to the customer. He reportedly called her to scream at her and then gave her a one-star review.

The driver assumed that Uber Eats would kick the dealer off the app and remove her one-star review, but instead, they gave her the runaround. She hadn’t delivered the package that she was supposed to deliver, so from Uber’s perspective, she was in the wrong. But wouldn’t you know, as soon as the Morning Herald started asking questions about why the company was siding with a meth dealer, it changed its tune and told the driver that it would remove the bad review and pay her for the trip.

Funny how that works. “In order to maintain the reliability of our rating system, we are unable to provide or adjust ratings for individual trips,” turns into, “Jess was advised the one-star rating would be removed and she would be refunded the full fare amount,” only hours after a reporter starts asking questions. But hey, at least Jess got her $16.