Residents of Los Angeles neighborhood receive mysterious paid food deliveries

Business

By Andrew Miller, Fox Business

March 19, 2023 | 4:45

Residents of a northeast Los Angeles neighborhood have been puzzled by a series of paid food deliveries that show up at doors despite not having been ordered.

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that residents along Range View Avenue in the Highland Park neighborhood received deliveries of chicken sandwiches, milkshakes, pastries, coffee and other items they never ordered from food delivery services like Uber Eats.

Unsolicited deliveries began in February, and a handful of people told The Times they sometimes received multiple orders a day. It’s not clear if the orders are a scam or some kind of prank.

Residents say delivery drivers haven’t been able to provide much information about who is placing the orders, either because they don’t know or because the deliveries use other people’s names.

“Drivers are always laughing at the situation,” said Range View resident and documentary filmmaker Will Neal.

“It’s quite remarkable what they can do with a pancake sandwich,” Neal added, in a joke referring to the four unsolicited McDonald’s McGriddles he received at his home on February 25 – the first of the 40 mysterious deliveries to his house.

Some residents ate the food, some threw it away and others donated it to local charities.

“I don’t trust him – I’m throwing him away,” Dean Sao, a carpenter at nearby Pasadena City College, told the outlet. “I don’t know who does it. At first we joked: it must be Elon Musk – I don’t know who else could afford it.

Morgan Currier, who received 30 deliveries, told the outlet she asked the delivery driver to call the number associated with the order and he was disconnected.

An Uber spokesperson told Fox Business that the company has launched an investigation into the source of the orders and has “taken action” against a number of accounts.

The spokesperson added that the company was monitoring orders sent to this section of Highland Park.