Residents in a northeast Los Angeles neighborhood have been puzzled by a string of paid food deliveries that are showing up on doorsteps despite not being ordered.
The Los Angeles Times reported this week that residents along Range View Avenue in the Highland Park neighborhood have been receiving deliveries of chicken sandwiches, milkshakes, pastries, coffee and other items they never ordered from food delivery services like Uber Eats.
The unrequested deliveries began in February, and a handful of people told the Times that they sometimes received multiple orders per day. It is not clear if the orders are a scam or prank of some kind.
Residents say that the delivery drivers have not been able to provide much information about who is placing the orders due to either not knowing or because the deliveries are using the names of other people.
“The drivers always laugh at the situation,” Range View resident Will Neal, a documentary filmmaker, said.
“It is kind of remarkable what they are able to do with a pancake sandwich,” Neal added, in a joking reference to the four unrequested McDonald’s McGriddles that he received at his home on Feb. 25 – the first out of 40 mysterious deliveries to his home.
Some residents have been eating the food, some have been throwing it away, and others have donated it to local charities.
“I don’t trust it — I’m throwing it out,” Dean Sao, a carpenter at nearby Pasadena City College, told the outlet. “I don’t know who’s doing it. We were joking at first: It must be Elon Musk — I don’t know who else could afford it.”
Morgan Currier, who received 30 deliveries, told the outlet that she had the delivery driver call the number that was associated with the order, and it had been 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 is monitoring orders sent to that section of Highland Park.