Fraudsters scam Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat, etc, by making food look undercooked and/or damaged via AI

[Celerity]

Takeaway customers are using AI to edit photos of their meal orders to con providers into issuing refunds

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/deliveroo-takeaway-food-scam-ai-edited-photos-vzzmgmwlz

https://archive.ph/Fqsd4



Fraudsters are exploiting powerful image-editing tools to doctor photographs of takeaway meals and demand refunds from restaurants and delivery apps, experts have warned. 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. Others have added fake mould, digitally “melted” cakes or even inserted an image of a fly into a dessert box.


A fly digitally added to a picture of a dessert

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. 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 “evidence”.

Caroline Green, co-head of retail and supply chain at the law firm Browne Jacobson, said: “It is simply a case of people getting more sophisticated in the tools that they’re using.” She added that claims were often a form of “fraud by representation” and could constitute a criminal offence even if unsuccessful. “The fact that you’ve made the claim … that is the crime,” the lawyer said, warning that what many people viewed as a “victimless” offence ultimately drove up costs for everyone.



Saara Leino, an AI lawyer at the same firm, said companies were increasingly reporting customers using AI to fabricate realistic images. 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. 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. AI detection tools exist but are unreliable and expensive, Leino said, with “a lot of false positives and false negatives”.

snip


There are programs to spot digitally altered images but the technology is not wholly reliable

[Hugin]

1. This is why we can't have anything nice.

Last edited Thu Jan 1, 2026, 10:51 AM - Edit history (1)

It’s nothing new, though.

An associate of mine that I USED to eat out with occasionally did some variation of this every time. I figured it out about the third time. He must’ve spent the same twenty bucks fifty times. I guess they think it’s clever or funny to extort the wait staff. It does take more gravitas to do it in person than via the Internet.

[mwmisses4289]

2. And the upshot will be no more refunds.

[NJCher]

3. Amazon takes a pic

Of the delivery at your house.

Maybe they could do something similar, combined with accumulating a list of repeat offenders.

[Hugin]

5. Yeah, a pic of the food as it goes out.

That would only make everything cost more in the long run.

[highplainsdem]

4. Thread from 12/21 on this sort of scam in China, where fraudsters can go to jail:

https://democraticunderground.com/100220882295