A Just Eat delivery driver was 'sacked' by the popular delivery app for filling his car up while he waited for an order that was delayed.
Lohom Jaimes, 36, was supposed to pick up a meal from a McDonald's restaurant in Edinburgh, but as the order wasn't ready and there were another 20 orders ahead of him he went to a nearby petrol station to fill his car up.
When he returned the order still wasn't ready, but says Just Eat removed him from the app in the belief he purposely waited to claim extra waiting time payment and he's now permanently barred, reports The Daily Record.
Lohom said: “I was away for ten minutes, which seemed reasonable because there were 20 orders before me on the screen inside McDonald’s.
"It seemed like a perfect chance to get fuel because I knew I would be getting another order immediately after the one I was on.
“But even though I didn’t do anything wrong, I was accused of trying to get some extra waiting time payment and just deactivated.”
Lohom, who is Italian, said that waiting time payments are tiny and the Just Eat systems are too quick to jump to the conclusion that drivers are acting in bad faith if they do not remain rooted in the restaurants while orders are made.
Lohom had bought a car to do the job, costing him £400 a month - a cost he was stuck with. The dad-of-two said he earned around £700 a week for around 50 hours work.
He is now working for a hotel, which pays less money.
Lohom is one of many courier drivers who claim to have been unfairly removed from the app. They say they have been given no chance to discuss their treatment as the automated system involves few staff looking after personnel issues.
Couriers are not regarded as employees meaning they have few employment rights.
Anne McLaughlin, MP for Glasgow North East, said: “I find the way Just Eat couriers are being routinely dismissed and deactivated, essentially by a machine, completely unfair and unjust. There is a cost of living crisis and people are doing their best just to get by, Just Eat are robbing people of their livelihood at a time when they really need that income.”
She added: “Rather than have a proper appeals process, which would require staff and cost money, they have their own system of internal reviews - essentially marking their own homework. It’s simply not good enough. You can’t let a machine sack someone and subsequently offer no chance to appeal that decision or explain their side of the story.”
The App Drivers and Couriers Union claims delivery companies deliberately use many more drivers than they need - then can terminate whoever they like at no cost to the business.
The two main reasons drivers appear to have their Just Eat accounts deactivated are:
- Drivers moving outside restaurants like McDonald to await deliveries (often at the restaurant’s request). Many claim to have been falsely accused of fraud, as a GPS tracker tells Just eat they have left the job.
- Using third party software like Shift Grabber to automatically reserve shifts. These have resulted in warnings that advanced to permanent deactivation without any further discussion.
Thomas Mehari, 32, was one of the drivers permanently deactivated from Just Eat for using Shift Grabber.
Thomas, from Glasgow, said most drivers were using the app when Just Eat 'sacked' him in July.
He said: “I worked with Just Eat for five years and they just terminated me in a second and that was it. I used the Shift Grabber app, which is legal, because everyone else was. But I deleted it after I got a warning.
‘The next thing I knew was an email arriving saying I was deactivated.
“I was devastated because I could not explain myself and my job had been taken away. I think it’s a really bad way to treat people and really unfair. I feel very upset and frustrated that I cannot even argue my case.”
Thomas was sent an email stating he was permanently barred. It also warned that if he took out sub-contracted work via another driver they would be banned too.
He is currently living off his savings and looking for other driving work.
Cansu Safak, of the Worker Info Exchange, which fights for couriers’ rights, said he had dealt with almost 100 cases of deactivation but expects there are many times more.
He said: “The deactivations we are seeing are the clear result of delivery companies turning to unchallengeable automation for the management of their workforces. Couriers are routinely dismissed because the GPS data showed them step outside of a restaurant and when they try to explain themselves, there’s no one there to listen.”
A Just Eat spokesperson said the company would investigate the claims made in the Record.
The spokesperson said: “We take any concerns raised by couriers on our network seriously and will investigate and take action as needed if a courier feels they have been wrongly deactivated."
