{"id":349771,"date":"2026-01-03T10:35:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T10:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/349771\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T10:35:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T10:35:33","slug":"fraudsters-scam-deliveroo-by-making-food-look-undercooked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/349771\/","title":{"rendered":"Fraudsters scam Deliveroo by making food look undercooked"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fraudsters are exploiting powerful image-editing tools to doctor photographs of takeaway meals and demand refunds from restaurants and delivery apps, experts have warned.<\/p>\n

In a growing number of cases, customers are said to be digitally altering pictures of burgers to make them appear dangerously pink in the middle, claiming food was undercooked.<\/p>\n

Others have added fake mould, digitally \u201cmelted\u201d cakes or even inserted an image of a fly into a dessert box.<\/p>\n

\"Flies<\/p>\n

A fly digitally added to a picture of a dessert<\/p>\n

Customers are using the fake images to demand refunds from delivery apps such as Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat, raising fears of growing pressure on restaurants.<\/p>\n

Lawyers said the trend represented a modern update on longstanding retail fraud but was powered by increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence tools capable of producing convincing photographic \u201cevidence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Caroline Green, co-head of retail and supply chain at the law firm Browne Jacobson, said: \u201cIt is simply a case of people getting more sophisticated in the tools that they\u2019re using.\u201d She added that claims were often a form of \u201cfraud by representation\u201d and could constitute a criminal offence even if unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that you\u2019ve made the claim \u2026 that is the crime,\u201d the lawyer said, warning that what many people viewed as a \u201cvictimless\u201d offence ultimately drove up costs for everyone. <\/p>\n

Saara Leino, an AI lawyer at the same firm, said companies were increasingly reporting customers using AI to fabricate realistic images.<\/p>\n

\"Just<\/p>\n

Delivery firms such as Deliveroo and Just Eat have been targeted<\/p>\n

NATHAN STIRK\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

In one example, a cake was digitally manipulated to appear to have collapsed in transit; in another, a photograph showed a fake insect apparently lodged in icing.<\/p>\n

Restaurants also complain that delivery platforms frequently side with customers and issue automatic refunds without proper investigation, with the cost passed back to the business.<\/p>\n

AI detection tools exist but are unreliable and expensive, Leino said, with \u201ca lot of false positives and false negatives\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Some retailers are considering asking customers to provide live video evidence or to film the affected product in real time, but any such system would be costly and risk alienating genuine customers. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be about how you are willing to do business going forward,\u201d Leino added.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

There are programs to spot digitally altered images but the technology is not wholly reliable<\/p>\n

The problem also appears to be far wider than food delivery. Research by Forter, a fraud prevention company, suggests that 52 per cent of UK consumers admit to abusing retailers\u2019 policies in the past year.<\/p>\n

One tactic used by customers is to order enough items to receive free shipping, but then return the additional, unwanted items.<\/p>\n

With some estimates suggesting that up to one in ten refund claims may be fraudulent, the lawyers said, businesses may ultimately respond in the same way as insurers \u2014 by building shared databases of suspected offenders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you get away with it once, you\u2019re probably unlikely to leave it at that,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n

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Graham Wynn, assistant director of business and regulation at the British Retail Consortium, said: \u201cUsing AI to alter images with the intention of fraudulently obtaining refunds is illegal under the Fraud Act 2006 and retailers will take necessary measures where such fraud is uncovered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just Eat said: \u201cTo protect our partners from fraudulent claims we use robust tools to determine if refund requests are genuine. We are continually updating the checks we have in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uber Eats and Deliveroo declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fraudsters are exploiting powerful image-editing tools to doctor photographs of takeaway meals and demand refunds from restaurants and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-349771","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-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}