Two Florida scammers stole greater than $1 million from Uber Eats

In a nutshell: Uber Eats' online shipping platform become scammed with the aid of two younger guys from Florida's coastal town of Fort Lauderdale. The inventive duo abused the gadget to siphon hundreds of hundreds of dollars from the organization, till a long investigation unveiled their modus operandi.

Trayon Morgan and Roy Blackwood were arrested by using Broward County Sheriff's Office after an 8-month-long research exposed a pricey rip-off against the grocery shipping carrier furnished with the aid of Uber Eats. The Florida guys are suspected of scamming Uber out of greater than $1 million, Broward County Sheriff said.

The fraud began in January 2022, the investigators stated, and happened mainly in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Morgan changed into the principle big name of the operation, as he opened several accounts on the Uber Eats platform acting each as the patron and the courier. He could region a fake order as a patron, and then "receive" the same order as a courier.

Uber Eats provides a preauthorized and preloaded credit score card that may be used to purchase as much as $700 in a unmarried transaction. Morgan would cancel the fake "client" order, after which he might purchase a present card with Uber's prepaid card.

Blackwood seemingly acted as the "driving force" of the fraudster duo, escorting Morgan to exceptional Walgreens stores to spend the formerly bought gift playing cards. Broward County Sheriff's surveillance operation uncovered 27 special Walgreens locations visited by way of the scammers in a single day, causing Uber a lack of $5,013.28. Morgan would use stolen or completely fabricated identities of Uber drivers, setting his personal picture on their (authentic) license statistics.

Detectives stated that they worked together with Uber to find out and look at the rip-off, the use of unspecified "investigative techniques" to verify Morgan's involvement with the faux debts. Broward County Sheriff issued arrest warrants on August 7, finally capturing Blackwood on August sixteen and Morgan on August 22.

The two suspects at the moment are charged with organizing a scheme to defraud and grand theft. An Uber spokesperson said that the corporation is grateful for the efforts via law enforcement inside the case. Uber keeps to spend money on "strong anti-fraud structures" and technology, the spokesperson said, which allowed the organisation's Global Investigations Team to "proactively alert" regulation enforcement approximately the rip-off. Fighting fraudulent activity is a priority for Uber.