Uber Eats tip baiting is one of the more frustrating parts of delivering for Uber Eats, and if you deliver for Uber Eats regularly, it’s something you will likely have to deal with at some point. Indeed, you’ll find countless threads online of drivers complaining about tip baiting.
So what exactly is tip baiting? In short, it’s when the customer changes their tip after the driver has delivered the order. The reason this can happen is that Uber Eats allows customers to change their tip up to one hour after their delivery is completed.
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at what Uber Eats tip baiting is and discuss why it might happen and what you can do to prevent it from happening to you.
What Is Uber Eats Tip Baiting?
Tip baiting is when a customer leaves a tip with the intent of enticing a driver to accept their order, then removes the tip after the order is delivered. By doing this, the customer gets their order delivered to them quickly and saves money by not tipping.
Uber Eats drivers are paid per delivery, so the decision to accept an order is based on the expected payout from Uber Eats. While Uber Eats drivers can’t see exactly what a customer tipped when accepting an order, they can get a sense of what the customer tipped by the expected payout. A low expected payout likely means the customer left no tip, while a high expected payout means the customer likely left a good tip. As a result, drivers are more likely to quickly accept orders from customers that left good tips.
The reason tip baiting works is that Uber Eats allows customers to remove their tip for up to one hour after the order is delivered. Customers do not have to give a reason for removing or lowering a tip. They can simply do so within the Uber Eats app and the driver won’t know until an hour or so after the order is completed. As a drive, you’ll only know the tip was changed or removed by looking at the earnings screen.
There are some circumstances when a customer might have a legitimate reason to change or remove the tip. If a driver is rude to a customer, for example, it can make sense for a customer to punish the driver by removing the tip. Or if a driver is obviously multi-apping and taking strange routes that lead to long delays, it can make sense to punish the driver and remove the tip.
But most of the time, a customer changing a tip after delivery is simply tip baiting. Either that or they are blaming the driver for things outside of their control, such as missing or incorrect orders, or long delays because the restaurant was slow or busy.
Tip Baiting Doesn’t Exist With DoorDash Or Grubhub
Unlike Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub both do not allow customers to change their tips after the order is completed. As a result, the payout you see as a driver is the payout you will receive.
This is in contrast to Uber Eats, which doesn’t show drivers the actual payout, but rather the “anticipated” payout.
There are other apps that can also suffer from this tip-baiting issue. Instacart, in particular, is another app that allows customers to change their tip after the delivery is completed. However, after some media coverage about this issue, Instacart did make it clear that they would deactivate customers that consistently tip-baited shoppers. Uber, on the other hand, has never addressed tip baiting.
What Can You Do About Tip Baiting?
Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about tip-baiting as a driver. One thing I can say is that the vast majority of orders will pay exactly what is expected. I’ve only been tip-baited a handful of times in the 6+ years I’ve been delivering for Uber Eats. In my experience, probably 95% of orders will pay exactly as expected.
If you see a particularly high-paying order, I would still accept it (assuming it makes sense for you – i.e. it’s going in the right direction, the distance is correct, etc). While very high-paying orders could be potential tip-bait orders, it’s not worth second-guessing yourself and rejecting those orders under the assumption that it could be a tip-bait.
The only other things you can do is provide good customer service, deliver orders on time, and do your best to make sure orders are accurate. Most of the time, if your tip is lowered, it’ll be because something happened that the customer is blaming you for. Sometimes, they might be right to blame you. Other times, it might have been something out of your control.
One of the things I notice a lot of drivers forget is the drinks. It’s easy to forget drinks because they’re usually not put in the same bag as the rest of the order. Restaurants often forget about them too, so if all you do is take whatever is handed to you without looking at what the order is, you’ll probably miss the drink. When I’m delivering for Uber Eats, I always double-check the order in my Uber Eats app to make sure I’m not missing a drink.
Final Thoughts
Overall, tip-baiting is a problem, but one that I wouldn’t worry about too often. Yes, it can happen. And yes, it sucks when it happens. But for the most part, when you see the expected payout for an Uber Eats order, you can usually work under the assumption that you will receive that payout. The vast majority of customers are not going to tip-bait drivers.
I hope this post was helpful. Please feel free to leave your thoughts about tip-baiting or share your experiences.
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- Vanpowers Manidae Ebike – The Vanpowers Manidae is a fat tire ebike that I’ve been riding as my primary winter commuting bike and have also been using it to do food delivery with apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. After clocking in a decent number of miles with this ebike, I wanted to write a post sharing what my experience with the Vanpowers Manidae ebike has been like. Check out my Vanpowers Manidae Review.
- Sohamo S3 Step-Thru Folding EBike Review – A Great Value Folding Ebike – The Sohamo S3 Step-Thru Folding Ebike is an entry-level folding ebike that offers a lot of value for the price point. I’ve been riding the Sohamo S3 for a while now, putting the bike through its paces, and I have to say, this bike has exceeded all of my expectations. Check out my Sohamo Review.
- KBO Flip Ebike – The KBO Flip is an excellent bike. I’ve had a great time riding it and think it’s a versatile bike that can be used for a lot of purposes and can fit a variety of lifestyles. It’s worked out great for me as a general commuter bike and as a food delivery bike. Check out my KBO Flip Review.
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- Varla Eagle One Scooter – The Varla Eagle One is an excellent scooter that can make sense for a lot of people. It can work as a primary mode of transportation. You can use it to work on gig economy apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. And it can also be a recreational vehicle if you’d prefer to use it for that. Check out my Varla Eagle One Review.
- Varla Falcon Scooter – The Varla Falcon is an excellent scooter that offers a good amount of power at a lower price point compared to more powerful scooters. It’s not exactly an entry-level scooter, nor is it a high-powered scooter. I think it fits somewhere in-between those two categories – an intermediate scooter if I had to give it a category. Check out my Varla Falcon Review.
- Hiboy S2 Scooter – The Hiboy S2 is an excellent entry-level commuter scooter that's perfect for someone looking to save some money in transportation costs and improve their commute. Check out my Hiboy S2 Review.
- Hiboy S2R Scooter – The Hiboy S2R is one of the more interesting electric scooters I’ve been able to test out. It’s not a high-powered scooter, but for an everyday transport option, it’s very useful, especially given some of the unique features that it has. Indeed, for the price, the Hiboy S2R might be the best value scooter I’ve used. Check out my Hiboy S2R Review.
- Fucare H3 Scooter – The Fucare H3 is a fun scooter and I’ve enjoyed testing it out. For a daily commuter or quick trips or errands, the Fucare H3 is probably the scooter I’ll use. It’s portable and easy to maneuver, so it’s just easier to take on the road when I need it. Check out my Fucare H3 Scooter Review.
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Kevin is an attorney and the blogger behind Financial Panther, a blog about personal finance, travel hacking, and side hustling using the gig economy. He paid off $87,000 worth of student loans in just 2.5 years by choosing not to live like a big shot lawyer.
Kevin is passionate about earning money using the gig economy and you can see all the ways he makes extra income every month in his side hustle reports.
Kevin is also big on using the latest fintech apps to improve his finances. Some of Kevin's favorite fintech apps include:
- SoFi Money. A really good checking account with absolutely no fees. You'll get a $25 referral bonus if you open a SoFi Money account with a referral link, and an additional $250 if you complete a direct deposit.
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- US Bank Business. US Bank is currently offering new business customers a $800 signup bonus after opening a new account and meeting certain requirements.
- M1 Finance. This is a great robo-advisor that has no fees and allows you to create a customized portfolio based on your risk tolerance. You also get $100 for opening an account.
- Personal Capital. One of best free apps you can use to monitor your portfolio and track your net worth. This is one of the apps I use to track my financial accounts.
Feel free to send Kevin a message here.
I honestly wonder if it really is the customer who is tip-baiting or Uber themselves, offering a ficticious tip in order to get delivery people to accept the orders. I often (like at least 10 times a day) have orders that promise one fee and then result in a much lower fee at the end of the day. Uber’s lack of transparency frankly strikes me a flagrantly illegal. Their whole business model seems to be built on thumbing their noses at labour laws and ethical business rules.
If delivery people are going to hold off on orders because it’s not worth their time. Then it’s perfectly logical that customers are going to find a way to make them do their jobs. Life finds a way.
If you’re going to withhold an order for a ransom. You can’t cry when customers retaliate by dangle a carrot in front of you to make you do your job.
I’ve been delivering a few times a week for a little over a month and had my first one a couple days ago. Luckily the dropoff was basically across the street from where I live and wasn’t very far, but I had to drive through rush hour traffic. He not only screwed me out of the $6 tip, he screwed anyone else who ever orders from that location. If I see the same delivery location when accepting an order I’ll cancel it without hesitation.
This is complete fraud and I’ve hired an attorney who agrees. I was stiffed by UberEATS tonight on a shop and pay delivery I made to a customer who happens to live down the street from me. I intend to confront him/her about this tomorrow. If there’s even a slight chance that this customer did NOT remove their tip and this is just yet another one of UberEATS screw-upperies. Woe be it unto them. I’m stunned at how many of you shoppers just sort of shrug it off. No wonder UberEATS allows this bait and switch to continue! They need a lawsuit in order for change to occur
It is very annoying!!!!!!!! It’s happened to me a couple of times and when I call customer service, they try to shrug it off! Uber doesn’t care, you’ve done the delivery, whether you get swindled or tip baited by the customer, they don’t care. It’s a terrible terrible company.
Just had me a tip baiter all I can say is thankfully it was close to my home so the $3 I ended up making covered the gas. So much for that $10 tip I kinda figured when I saw it was just a combo meal and a young kid took the order!
Today alone, I was tip baited at least 12 of my 16 runs. One was gracious enough to leave me 0.01. 👍
When I first started delivering with Uber I had no issues with tip baiting. Lately it’s been on the uptick. It may have something to do with the economy. Due to this I’ve been sticking to Doordash lately. FYI my rating is pretty high on Uber and my deliveries are usually on time or early.
That stinks. Sorry to hear about that.
Uber eats is garbage. Out of my first four deliveries only 1 actually left the tip, and I’m not slow or multi apping.
That hasn’t been my experience, though I did just get my first tip baiter today. Of the recommendation of a YouTuber who is a delivery driver, I’m going to follow up with customer service and see if they’ll fix it. Here’s hoping.