“To be able to work, I need to spend from my own income more or less €300 per week in bills,” says one rider, Marco*, who has been renting separate accounts from individuals with Just Eat and Deliveroo for two years.
“There are some cases of duplicated orders with earnings of also €2.90; it happens after you accept an order at a restaurant and then, when you arrive at the restaurant, the app will throw you another order,” a delivery rider, who did not wish to be named, said. “We ask where the person lives to check if everything matches and it’s fine. This we do for security reasons and to protect ourselves. If someone chose not to share his documents, this is a suspicious ... not a trustworthy sign.”
“I only have seven days to resolve it – if I don’t get it, the account will be cancelled, and most of the time that’s what happens, that’s because you can no longer contact the account owner. Some people can, some don’t.” The Irish Times saw a sample of payments received by delivery riders to complete orders in Dublin. One job was priced at €4.68 for a 9.2km delivery that was scheduled to take more than 30 minutes. Another was priced at €7.07 for a 12.4km delivery. Smaller delivery jobs in Dublin city were priced under €3.
Deliveroo had clear processes and checks in place to ensure riders had the right to work in Ireland as self-employed, and it was a matter the company took “extremely seriously,” with a zero-tolerance approach, she added.