Chinese Restaurant Allegedly Ripped Off Twice By Man Claiming To Be Postmates Courier
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - A Sacramento restaurant was ripped off twice by a man claiming to be a Postmates courier. Now they're warning other restaurants to be on the lookout.
On Tuesday, a Postmates courier, or someone posing as a courier, walked into the Golden Palace restaurant on Northgate Boulevard, approached the counter, and showed the restaurant worker his device with all of the order information, a restaurant employee says.
"He has his device, all of the order information. He showed me his order and I saw that he was the driver," Clement Huang, Owner of Dragon Palace, said.
Huang gave the courier the food, and the courier left.
But the man never confirmed that he picked up the food -- leaving the restaurant without their money and the customer without their food. The restaurant says the courier who goes by "Frankie" has done this twice.
"I do recognize the person from the last incident," Huang said.
The owner says the first incident happened on September 16.
"As a driver, you know, they can choose what jobs they take," Huang said. "Maybe they have an idea in mind that they are going to take your food. What can you do?"
We contacted Postmates about the incident and they said they would look into the incident and see if the man was really a courier or if he was only posing as the courier.
Later, CBS13 received this statement from the company:
"We take seriously the reports of this incident, in part because we require every member of the Postmates fleet to adhere to our core safety and community standards in order to remain on the platform. Based on the conduct reported and investigated here, we have removed the courier involved from the Postmates platform and reached out to the merchant to offer assistance."
Postmates told CBS13 over the phone that it does reimburse restaurants and customers when situations like this happen.
The food delivery service also said there are strict policies in place to make sure drivers aren't allowing other people they know to use their app.
During the pandemic, a situation like this can add insult to injury.
"It has happened to us multiple times with different people on different platforms. It's just kind of a thing to be cautious about," Huang said.