Some time ago, I accepted a Postmates job that quickly turned bizarre. The pickup location was Hammy’s Pizza on 21st and Clinton St.
While driving toward Hammy’s, my phone rang. The caller had a 415 area code. I knew it would be Postmates related and immediately became anxious and annoyed. It’s never a good sign when you get a 415 phone call before you even arrive at the pickup location. My exactly thought was “Ugh, what is it now?”
The caller told me he works for Cibo, which is an Italian restaurant 15 blocks from Hammy’s. He then said “I’m trying to get in touch with someone from Postmates (management)”. The heck if I know! I’m just an independent contractor.
I told him I was busy with an order. This is where it got weird. He revealed that he placed the order for Hammy’s Pizza. I was thought he was trolling me. But he explained that another Postmates courier had came to Cibo for an order, took the food, and walked out without paying, so now he’s trying to get in touch with Postmates to have someone come pay for the food.
I had no desire to get involved with this because it’s apparent that I wasn’t going to get paid for this order. But in the name of customer service (you’re welcome, Postmates), I told him I’d call the support team down in San Francisco and see if someone can resolve this. After parking my car next to Hammy’s, I contacted courier support. You can do this by pressing the “Help” button in the app.
While waiting for a response, I looked at the Shopping List for this order. Lo and behold, I found a message describing the situation. You can read it below:
The other parties probably didn’t see it that way, but to me it was a pretty comical situation. You can’t make this stuff up: someone “Courier and dashed”. I definitely didn’t sign up for this but then again, my experience with Postmates has been pretty unpredictable.
When HQ finally got back to me, I explained the situation, told them to call Cibo and asked that they cancel this job. Then I called Cibo and told the guy to expect a call from Postmates. He said okay. I hope what transpired after that was positive. It would be in Postmates’ interest to work this out with Cibo since Caviar also sends couriers to Cibo. Tension from this incident would not be good for business.
