Uber Eats Lawsuit Says Paying ‘Priority Fee’ Does Not Ensure Direct Food Delivery as Advertised

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A proposed class action lawsuit alleges that Uber Eats has “swindled” customers nationwide into paying a “priority fee” for food deliveries that are not delivered directly to them as advertised. 

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The 43-page lawsuit against Uber Technologies, Inc. alleges that although the online food delivery platform claims that paying the so-called priority fee means an order will be delivered “direct to you,” Uber Eats drivers are, in reality, permitted—even encouraged—to “make other stops along the way.” The case contends that the language Uber Eats uses for the priority fee is intentionally misleading because it expressly promises at checkout that food will go directly from a restaurant to a customer’s door, with no other stops on the way.

The filing says that Uber Eats not only allows drivers delivering “priority orders” to make other stops first but does not even notify drivers that a customer has paid a priority fee, which typically ranges from $1 to $5, in exchange for direct delivery. 

“The priority fee is thus not a premium for a specialized service,” the Uber class action lawsuit argues. “It is a sham surcharge for a guarantee that Uber has no means of keeping and may actively work to undermine.” 

According to the lawsuit, Uber has pulled in “staggering profits” from the misleadingly advertised priority fees, “likely totaling hundreds of millions of dollars nationwide.” The suit calls Uber Eats’ actions “particularly egregious” amid “significant inflation, when every dollar matters to consumers.” 

The complaint alleges more broadly that Uber’s own practices and contractual arrangements with drivers render the Uber Eats priority fee a “sham” given that Uber Eats drivers are not prohibited from working simultaneously for other food-delivery platforms, such as DoorDash or Grubhub, while driving for Uber Eats. The lawsuit states that, in fact, Uber Eats has “explicitly authorized” its drivers to “multi-app” while falsely guaranteeing that customers who pay the priority fee will receive direct delivery. Per the suit, industry surveys indicate that nearly 70% of gig work drivers deliver for multiple platforms at once, with one study showing that roughly 38% of Uber Eats drivers multi-app with Grubhub alone. 

Further still, the Uber Eats platform, the case says, is “designed to encourage couriers to execute a delivery route that is not ‘direct to’ the priority customer.” For instance, Uber may assign a driver a “batched” order in which two or more customers’ orders are assigned to one driver during a single trip. In this case, Uber Eats prevents drivers from delivering priority orders directly to the customer, the lawsuit alleges. 

Even if an Uber Eats driver was aware that a customer had paid a priority fee, the lawsuit goes on, there is nothing to prevent them from making additional stops before completing the priority delivery, as Uber cannot compel drivers to take any particular route, prevent them from making additional stops, or otherwise ensure the “direct to you” promise is honored.

The Uber Eats class action lawsuit looks to cover all individuals in the United States who paid a priority fee for any order advertised as “direct to you” or “delivered directly to you.” 

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