Does Refunding Uber Eats affect the driver? (No, but…)

There’s nothing quite like the disappointment of receiving the wrong food order when you’re hungry. The stress, the time taken, etc., and most importantly, you don’t get the food when you need it the most.

While getting a refund from Uber Eats is a relatively straightforward process, you might wonder if this has repercussions for the delivery driver. Do the refunds come from the driver?

This article covers this extensively.

Does Refunding Uber Eats affect the driver?

In our previous article, we explained how making refund requests works on Uber Eats, what happens after, and most importantly, the condition for when any party has to foot the extra charges in making refunds to customers.

Yes, the benefactor for refunds does change. To make things clear, it’s usually between the restaurant and Uber Eats.

You see, when refund requests are made, Uber Eats makes a series of investigations to know if what you said aligns with what they have.

But most importantly, they do this to determine who was the reason for the displeased delivery.

Is it the Restaurant’s or a delivery-related issue?

However, we made something clear — drivers are whitelisted from the processes of refunds.

In other words, anytime you make refunds, the driver has no business with that and his earnings won’t be footing them.

And this is the reason if you’re conversant in making orders from food delivery, you’ll notice drivers always say “Contact support if anything goes wrong.” Of course, they have nothing to lose monetarily.

But what if the driver is actually at fault?

Making refunds could also affect drivers. Not monetarily but it could risk their stay on the platform.

This, however, entirely depends on what the reason for the refund is.

For instance, If a driver consistently gets reported for missing orders, they could get deactivated, as one of the company’s policies is to make sure deliveries are completed at the restaurant.

But they can’t always do that, since customers’ packages are usually always sealed.

One other instance is late delivery.

Uber Eats does take their time to make estimations of how long deliveries are to take.

And in the event of uncertainty, while delivering (like a restaurant delay), they take note of it — this is the reason you’ll notice the arrival time of deliveries sometimes changes.

Now, if a driver is found to consistently deliver late above the estimation time, they risk losing their account.

Keep in mind that Uber Eats won’t deactivate for a single late delivery or related issue.

There must be a series of them or other issues (such as persistent low ratings) the driver has with the company before any serious action can be taken.

Now, these are just some of the few things that could get a driver into a problem. We talk about them in detail, in the next section.

Other things that could affect an Uber Eats Driver

1. The Ratings

Ratings are a big deal in the food delivery industry, especially for drivers.

In an ideal world, every driver would arrive on time, and every order would be perfect.

But we know life isn’t a series of perfect events.

When something goes wrong and it’s the driver’s fault, low ratings can accumulate and lead to fewer delivery requests in the long run.

A consistently low rating can also get a driver deactivated.

But you know what’s worst? A 4-star rating is a bad rating, not to mention 3 or 2.

According to the company, anything below a 4.6 overall rating for drivers is really bad and puts them at risk of deactivation.

So as a customer, only if you’re not satisfied with a delivery would you want to rate a driver below a 5 star. The delivery industry is not Playstore 😉

4 stars is not an average rating; it’s a bad rating.

Keep in mind that 90% of what causes a bad delivery is usually the restaurant’s fault or in some cases, Uber Eats.

2. Violations of the company’s policy

Talking more about what we discussed earlier — how bad delivery experiences or refunds could generally affect drivers.

Firstly, Uber Eats provides specific guidelines on how to handle food properly, including the use of insulated delivery bags and practicing good hygiene.

Ignoring these can be considered a violation and could lead to warnings, a temporary suspension, or even deactivation from the platform.

Generally, when Uber Eats has to make multiple refunds for a driver’s mistake, it could be risky for their stay in the long run.

Other violations that could be harmful to a driver’s stay:

1. Fraudulent actions, like claiming to have delivered an order that was never actually delivered.
2. Not adhering to traffic laws while delivering
3. Use of drugs while on the road
4. Reports of harassment, discrimination, or other unprofessional behavior toward a customer

Final Thoughts

While a single refund request may not significantly impact a driver, multiple refund requests attributed to the driver can flag them for review and may result in fewer opportunities or even deactivation.

Keep in mind, that refunds generally don’t affect drivers monetarily.