Deliveroo food delivery app accepts bogus restaurant run out of prankster’s apartment… Buyer beware!
Italian Stallion’ scams food delivery app with microwaved meatballs
by Hannah Frishberg
New York Post
September 11, 2019
It’s not delivery, it’s deception.
A YouTube prankster with more than 1 million followers exposed the shortcomings of food delivery app Deliveroo’s restaurant vetting — or lack thereof — when he set up a fake restaurant called the Italian Stallion.
Josh Pieters, 25, and two buddies launched a website for the egregious eatery, listing his own apartment as the address and buying Instagram followers to bolster its social-media presence.
“We knew Deliveroo would check our website, so it would have to look good,” says the South African social-media star in a video uploaded to his YouTube account.
Pieters and his friends took funny food photos, posted nonsense recipes and registered “Italian Stallion, Ltd” before ringing up Deliveroo to explain their lack of a hygiene rating. “One day on the phone, [a customer service rep] said you can start so long as you notify the council and then they will assign a hygiene rating to your premises,” Pieters tells Insider.
“I don’t think they’re doing any checks on who’s applying to have a restaurant on Deliveroo,” Pieters says in his video documenting the restaurant’s short-lived existence. “So despite having a picture of [UK TV personality] Gemma Collins [as head chef] and an AirPod as feta cheese and no food-hygiene inspection of any kind, Deliveroo were happy for us to get going.” Continue reading “Deliveroo Switcheroo”