Delivery Driver Investigated for Sending Unsolicited Messages to Female Customer

Men. You could be sweaty, dressed head-to-toe in off-brand sportswear, and scouring Sainsbury's for a tin of chickpeas after a Tuesday night run, and a dude would still find some way to sidle up behind you, feign interest in the Biona black beans, and try to ascertain whether you want to fuck.

Today in “Men Continue To Be Creepy”: a Just Eat driver in Gloucestershire has been shamed on social media for attempting to chat up a woman he delivered food to. The story gained traction online after Michelle Midwinter took to Twitter to complain about the company’s initial handling of the incident.

The driver, using the number Midwinter had provided to the Just Eat app, sent her a message from his personal phone shortly after dropping off her food. When Midwinter asked who the message was from, he identified himself as “a fan” and “the guy who delivered [her] meal,” to which she replied: “Ummmmmm okay.” The driver then sent a message saying, “if you have a boyfriend tell me I don’t want to make any problem” [sic], and ended the exchange with the unnerving sign-off: “Good night bby see you next time when I get your meal,” as well as a kiss mark emoji.

Midwinter immediately complained about the driver to Just Eat using the instant messenger service on its website. A customer service employee from the company told her to take the complaint to the restaurant, and to “try and be constructive.” They also offered her a £5 voucher for “the inconvenience,” admitting “in all honesty, we don’t really have a complaints department.” In the message exchange that Midwinter shared on Twitter, she can be seen informing the Just Eat employee that the issue is not an inconvenience, but “outrageous and disgusting behaviour.” They offered her a £10 voucher.

“I thought the initial response from Just Eat was laughable, which was why I posted it on Twitter,” Midwinter told MUNCHIES. “It had the desired effect and Just Eat are [now] taking it seriously because so many other people have had the same thing happen, and much worse than me.”

She added: “My experience was nothing in comparison to what a lot of other females have had to put up with.”

Indeed, many women responded to Midwinter’s tweet to share similar experiences of receiving unsolicited messages from delivery drivers. One Twitter user wrote: “Same thing happened to me and they just said to me ‘what would you like us to do?’ It’s ridiculous!!” adding, “It wasn’t even my delivery driver who’d sent the messages… he passed my number onto another driver at the restaurant!!” Another said: “I had a driver message me on Fb messenger?? How do they find the details??” The Times even covered the story under the headline, “Hundreds say ‘me too’ after woman shares Just Eat delivery driver’s pest texts.”

Midwinter’s original tweet about the complaint has now received 11,000 retweets. In response to this, a spokesperson from Just Eat told us: “We are appalled by the way this was handled when the customer initially made contact with our customer care team. This lacked empathy and does not reflect our policies.”

In regards to the driver, they 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.”

They added: “The safety and wellbeing of our customers is extremely important to us.”

When will the dudes learn?