Cob shop’s owner claims Uber Eats is ‘withholding’ sales cash
THE SNEINTON DALE BAKERY FEARS LOSING CUSTOMERS DUE TO THE ‘MIX-UP’
THE owner of a Nottingham cob shop is in despair after a month-long wrangle with food delivery service Uber Eats.
Rebecca Wilson said she has lost nearly a third of business over the last four weeks - and claims Uber Eats is withholding money she is owed on 150 orders totalling more than £1,100.
Mrs Wilson, who runs The Bakery in Sneinton Dale uses the delivery platform to get breakfasts and cobs out to customers.
The dispute began on October 22 when Uber Eats emailed to say her account was in review, either as a routine check or a recent change she had requested.
The Uber Eats website is also showing the business as not being open.
She said: “We hadn’t requested any changes, so assumed it was a standard review. They said they would get back to us within two working days, that we could still use the platform, but we wouldn’t receive payment until the review was done.
“We received sales from them for two weekends - we only open Thursday to Sunday. I didn’t expect the first week’s to be paid due to the timing of the original email, but when the second week’s wasn’t received, I chased them.”
Since then the business has been taken offline by Uber Eats and emails have been flying backwards and forwards, saying her complaint had been escalated to the relevant team but no one is responding.
“It now looks like this won’t be sorted out this week, potentially meaning another week of lost trade.
“It’s very frustrating that no one is able to help whenever you try to contact them. It’s stressful not knowing if you need to plan for a busy day or not.
“The effect this has had on our business is that sales last week were down over 30 per cent compared to the average for the last four weeks. Such a reduction means we don’t even cover our overheads, let alone make a profit.
“As they are withholding three weeks’ of sales, we will potentially have cashflow problems come the month end when wages and rent is due.
“Since lockdown, even more of our trade has gone online, making us heavily reliant on both the Uber Eats and Deliveroo platforms. I have looked on Uber Eats this afternoon, and we are not even showing as a business that is currently open. This could have a longer term effect on our business as people start to think we have shut down and decide to go elsewhere.
“We had customers calling us last weekend asking why they couldn’t order from us and asking if were we still trading.”
Yesterday, Mrs Wilson was eventually contacted by Uber Eats, who said they couldn’t verify her bank details from the statement she had provided.
She said: “This is even more frustrating, as this has happened before. My understanding is it is the layout of the statement showing the account number, which they don’t ‘understand.’
“Anyway, looks like it’s exactly the same issue this time - same bank account, we haven’t changed, only this time they haven’t notified us as to why payments were stopped, hence why we haven’t been able to do anything, and the reason they have now blocked us.”
When the Post contacted Uber Eats, a spokesman said: “We are in contact with this restaurant and the issue is being fully resolved. We are sorry that our service has fallen short on this occasion and will work hard to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”