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Just Eat under fire as delivery man sends unsolicited texts to customer: 'Good night bby'

‘If you have a bf tell me I don’t want to make any problems’

Olivia Petter
Tuesday 16 January 2018 11:19 GMT
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Just Eat has come under fire after a delivery man sends unsolicited texts to a customer: 'Good night bby'

A 33-year-old woman was horrified after a Just Eat driver sent her a string of unsolicited messages on WhatsApp after delivering her meal on Saturday.

Michelle Midwinter tweeted a screenshot of the conversation which showed the employee making inappropriate remarks after he dropped off her food.

As compensation for the incident, a customer services employee from Just Eat offered Midwinter a £10 voucher for the “inconvenience”.

“Just a snippet of Just Eat’s response to my receiving unsolicited messages from the guy who had just delivered my food,” writes Midwinter.

“Nice one Just Eat! Apart from him using my number in this way surely being in breach of privacy laws etc, they don’t really seem to take it seriously do they??”

In the messages the employee makes suggestive remarks towards Midwinter by referring to himself as “a fan”, calling her “bby” and sending a kiss mark emoji.

"At first I was shocked at the fact someone could approach me in that way," she recalls, "but that turned to feeling very uncomfortable as I realised this guy had my name, address, and phone number."

A spokesperson from Just Eat has been quick to stress that the driver’s behaviour was unacceptable and not in line with the company's ethics.

“This driver has acted in a way that does not represent Just Eat and our core values,” the said.

“We are investigating this with our restaurant partner and are also speaking to this customer offline and if the customer decides this is a criminal matter and reports it to the police, we will of course assist the police with any investigation.”

The Bristol-based jewellery designer was left reeling after a representative from Just Eat responded by saying “we don’t have a complaints department” and offered a £5 “goodwill voucher” as compensation.

After contesting this as a meagre offering, “Trixie” from Just Eat responded: “We don’t usually do this but I can offer you a goodwill voucher worth £10.”

“We are appalled by the way this was handled when the customer initially made contact with our customer care team,” a spokesperson for Just Eat said.

“This lacked empathy and does not reflect our policies or the way Just Eat would expect something like this to be dealt with.”

Midwinter’s tweet documenting the incident has gone viral online, with more than 8,700 likes and 4,500 retweets.

“I am astounded by the amount of females who have contacted me saying a similar thing happened to them,” she wrote in a subsequent tweet.

“This is no longer about my personal experience, this is about privacy law and safeguarding females. This is clearly a huge problem and it needs to stop.”

Speaking to The Independent, Midwinter explained that this incident illustrates a systemic problem within food delivery culture.

“I would like there to be less focus on my individual experience, and more on the wider privacy issues, data protection, safeguarding females etc.

“It is outrageous how much this is happening!"

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