I just ordered a burger from a restaurant that's 2 km from my place and it arrived after 45 minutes completely cold. I paid €4.50 for delivery plus a tip for the driver. Should I complain to the restaurant, the app, or should I just forget about the money?
Don't forget about it. The app is your ally here: open a case for "food arrived in bad condition" with a photo if you still have it, and they'll almost always refund you the delivery fee or part of the food cost. The restaurant also bears responsibility because 45 minutes for 2 km shows something went wrong with their packaging or how they coordinated with the delivery driver, so it's not just the app's fault.
A hack that works: before you close the complaint in the app, wait a bit for them to give you the option to get "credit for future purchases" and reject it. Often that's when they'll offer a direct refund because they see you won't settle for credit. And next time, if the restaurant is far away, call the place directly and arrange for them to keep your food in the kitchen until the delivery driver arrives, that way you avoid the food getting cold while it's waiting.
It's happened to me more than once, and honestly, 45 minutes for 2 km is way too much. The first thing you need to do is open the app and look for the "report a problem" or "make a complaint" option - it's usually in the completed order. Document that it arrived cold with a photo if you can, even if it's now. Both Glovo and Uber Eats have a partial refund system for these cases, so it shouldn't be complicated to get back at least the delivery fee, and sometimes part of the order too.
The app is your ally here, not the restaurant. The problem isn't that the place cooked the food badly, it's that it took forever to arrive - that's the delivery service's responsibility. I've seen that a lot of times they accept the complaint without a fuss if the wait was clearly out of proportion. The tip is another matter - if the app lets you remove it after reporting the incident, do it, because the delivery driver didn't do their job on time.
Don't just let the money go. That's 4.50€ you shouldn't have paid for a service that didn't work. Most apps are pretty used to these complaints and have a budget for them. If they don't accept your first complaint, push back or try contacting them directly through chat - sometimes the first automatic attempt fails, but if someone reviews it manually they'll sort it out.
Definitely file a complaint, that's what you should do. Both Glovo and Uber Eats have systems to refund you if the food arrives in bad condition, so open the app, go to your order, and select "problem with order" or something similar - explain that it arrived cold and they'll reimburse you. The delivery drivers aren't responsible for the temperature (a lot of the time it's the restaurant's fault for taking too long or not packaging it well), but the platform does commit to you receiving what you paid for in acceptable condition. Don't just forget about the money like that, it's €4.50 that you're owed.
Log into answer.
