How to unblock a restricted Uber EATS delivery Rider account

How to unblock a restricted Uber EATS delivery Rider account

• Wednesday 3 April 2019

I got a text message from Uber telling me that I registered with Uber EATS to deliver by bicycle only and their system had detected that I was in fact using a motor bike (lol imagine me driving one of those) I must go back to using a bicycle or risk loosing my account. 

A few weeks later I got another message from Uber basically saying this hasn't been resolved so they proceeded to immediately cut my account off. I was devastated. Not only had I never use a motorised vehicle (I am far too much of a baby to break the rules) but now I had no way to make extra money, nothing to do when I was bored and no potential cancelled orders for me to eat (sad times for me, the amount of people that cancel their orders around here is crazy.)

Having done some research online I read that it was almost impossible to get your account back after Uber had decided that you've broken the rules; but I managed it, most likely because I hadn't broken the rules to start with - although Uber were adamant that I had, it was a very long and hard process to regain access to my account, but a week later, my account had finally been reinstated. 

In a desperate bid to get it sorted I went online looking for advice or other peoples stories but it was all negative and made me feel worse so I've decided throw a blog post together to tell you how I got my account back and let you know that it is possible assuming that like me, you haven't actually done anything wrong.

Be Persistent

In my opinion this is the most important thing because the same thing happened to two of my friends the week before and my account was still fixed before there's. I did everything in my power to get my account fixed as soon as possible. I called them up and demanded to speak to a supervisor every. single. day and that took at least half an hour each time. I went to the Greenlight hub and I constantly messaged them through the app until the moment it was sorted.

Ask For A Supervisor

Leading on from this point, it seemed to me that the normal help line staff actually do believe that once you're account is restricted, it's not possible to change it back. I had one after another tell me there is no possible way to fix it; they were all quite obviously wrong. I could tell a few of them thought I was delusional when I mentioned that I had been told otherwise. As soon as I was passed on to a supervisor however, it was a different story. They explained how it worked and had it escalated for me.

Go To The Greenlight Hub 

Although I actually don't think this really helped my case, it did show that I was actively pursuing the issue. I went to the hub, spoke to someone there and was told the same thing - but I had them escalate again. To my knowledge, this was done maybe 5 times although I don't know how many were truly escalated because I only got escalation message a couple of hours before it was finally reactivated so just keep pushing.

Provide Proof 

Half way through the process, they asked me to send in photos of my bike and its reference number to "provide proof" so of course I did that the second they asked but I decided that if they wanted proof, I was going to give them as much proof as I had. I sent them photos I posted on social media of me and my bike with my Uber bag and also blog posts I wrote in the past, about how much I loved doing Uber EATS on my bike. 

Keep Calm & Professional 

At times I did feel like it wasn't going to happen and I really was heartbroken about it. I felt like I was being a pain and they were going to block my number altogether in the end because I was literally going on and on and on every day.

As frustrating as it was being put on hold for 15 minute at a time to then be told that they are not going to fix my account, it was important to stay calm and not get angry at anyone. 

I had to remember, I had done nothing wrong. They had unfairly dismissed me and I deserved my account back so I kept going until it was fixed. I was on first name terms with my local supervisor by the end and he apologised profusely on our last call. 

In the end, it took 6 days (over 2 weeks for my friends who I mentioned earlier); that's almost a whole week without any money coming in (probably around about $150 for me, which is what I pay for a weeks rent - very annoying) and a whole lot of stress but I was so happy when it was fixed that I didn't care - I went back on the road as soon as I found out.

If you have not done anything wrong do not lose hope!