Behind the scenes, as reporters tried to substantiate the claims, the ruse continued \u2014 still with AI.<\/p>\n
On Reddit, comments responding to the post generally accepted the claims as true. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs a human I think companies that try to charge different humans different amounts for the same things should no longer be allowed to operate,\u201d said one response, which received more than 1,800 upvotes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis sounds like a massive class action lawsuit if you do things right, with a high chance for the drivers to win this one,\u201d another commenter wrote.<\/p>\n
The anonymous user first posted to the r\/confession subcommunity last week, claiming they were exposing their company\u2019s secrets despite \u201ca massive NDA,\u201d or non-disclosure agreement, because they \u201ccan\u2019t sleep at night knowing I helped build this machine.\u201d <\/p>\n
The user, who did not identify a company by name, claimed that their employer uses predictive modeling to lower drivers\u2019 base pay based on their customers\u2019 tipping habits and that it has a hidden \u201cDesperation Score\u201d for drivers, which tracks how \u201cdesperate\u201d they are based on how willing they are to accept low-paying orders. The algorithm, the Reddit user claimed, would save the higher-paying orders for casual drivers to entice them to use the app.<\/p>\n
As the post gained traction online, its legitimacy also came into question.<\/p>\n
NBC News communicated with the person behind the Reddit account Friday via email and Signal. When the poster asked for proof of identity, an NBC News reporter sent a photo of her employee badge. <\/p>\n
Within days, other news outlets reported that the poster, in an attempt to prove their company affiliation, had sent journalists what appeared to be an Uber Eats employee badge. The image of the badge sent to them appeared to be an almost exact copy of the photo the poster had received from NBC News, but the badge included altered details, such as an Uber Eats logo on a background matching the company\u2019s colors.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/260106-blur-2-nbc-uber-eats-badge-ew-700p-1cb0d2.jpg\"){kind=icon}
An NBC News reporter sent a photo of her employee badge, left, and the poster sent journalists what appeared to be an Uber Eats employee badge after that, right.NBC News<\/p>\n
The Verge<\/a> and Platformer<\/a>, which both reported having been given the fake badge photo, ran it through Google\u2019s Gemini and found a SynthID watermark identifying it as having been either generated or edited by Google AI. <\/p>\n A spokesperson for Uber confirmed to NBC News that there are no Uber Eats employee badges and that the company does not do what is alleged in the Reddit post or in any of the documents shared by the user.<\/p>\n When NBC News tried to follow up with the Reddit user, their Signal and email accounts appeared to have been deleted. The user did not respond to a follow-up Reddit message.<\/p>\n Andrew Macdonald, president and chief operating officer of Uber, wrote in a statement on X<\/a> that the post is \u201cdefinitively not about us. I suspect it is completely made up. Don\u2019t trust everything you read on the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n DoorDash CEO and co-founder Tony Xu also condemned the practices alleged in the post.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not DoorDash, and I would fire anyone who promoted or tolerated the kind of culture described in this Reddit post,\u201d Xu wrote on X<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re not perfect by *any* stretch of the imagination, but we work every day to make our platform better for everyone who comes to it. What\u2019s described here is appalling, and if true, whoever is operating in this manner should be ashamed.\u201d<\/p>\n Platformer founder Casey Newton told NBC News that the Reddit user gave him an 18-page document<\/a> that they claimed were internal Uber documents. It included charts, diagrams and mathematical formulas, which almost fooled him. But then, Newton said, he noticed peculiarities in the formatting, the language and even the way it single-handedly backed up all of the poster\u2019s various allegations.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was sort of a cartoon villain\u2019s document about how you would exploit a human being to the absolute maximum,\u201d Newton said. Soon, he said, the red flags pointed to the entire Reddit post\u2019s being a sham.<\/p>\n To Newton, the saga was a reminder of how, in the age of increasingly sophisticated and accessible generative AI, anyone online can easily and quickly fool even the most discerning content consumers. <\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s an employee ID that once took skilled Photoshop work or a bulky technical document that would have taken hours or days to falsify, much of the visual evidence that once could be easily believed must now be subject to more scrutiny.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is really unfortunate that this post got millions of views, and I think there\u2019s some chance that millions of people now believe that there is a delivery company that is doing all of these things,\u201d Newton said.<\/p>\n People are especially vulnerable to believing and resharing content that elicits emotional reactions like outrage, he said. And there is also the power of confirmation bias.<\/p>\n Food or grocery delivery services like DoorDash and Instacart have faced accusations of exploitation in past years, when it was revealed that they used tips to subsidize<\/a> part of their workers\u2019 base pay.<\/p>\n Similarly, ride-share services like Uber and Lyft have faced multiple lawsuits for classifying drivers as independent contractors<\/a> rather than employees, allowing the companies to avoid providing minimum wage, overtime pay and other benefits. In 2023, Uber and Lyft paid a combined $328 million to settle allegations that they unlawfully withheld wages from drivers<\/a> and failed to provide mandatory paid sick leave in New York state.<\/p>\n Newton said posts like the one that went viral this week tend to be \u201cirresistible,\u201d because they confirm what many already believe about those companies.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re looking for something to be shocked about,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd a post like this just kind of steps into that vacuum and says, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m going to give you a great Saturday morning, and now you can be super, super mad at your food delivery app.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An anonymous Reddit user\u2019s claims of fraud and theft by an unnamed food delivery company appear to have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-225832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}