A lengthy review regards my experience of being a cyclist courier with Deliveroo and how it is today.

All seemed to be brilliant when I started delivering back in summer 2016, we were paid by the hour, it wasn't minimum wage but still it was a stable means of income. The downside is that it is no where near as flexible such as what Uber Eats is than it makes itself out to be. What I mean by that is that in order to go out delivering for Deliveroo, there is this schedule. And riders are having to apply for shifts on this schedule to then be approved on this schedule for what hours any rider puts themselves down for so for example. I may apply for say 30 hours on any given week when a new schedule gets published each week. Usually on a Monday. I would maybe be approved to go out delivering for 20 out of them 30 hours I had put myself down for. That's what I mean in it not having that flexibility that Deliveroo are making itself out to be.

Various changes have been rolled out over this past couple of years and people may have read that riders are not classed as employees. But 10 million pound worth of shares have been split between employees of Deliveroo meaning since riders are not classed as employees they aren't and don't get an entitlement to a share of that pot, and it is the riders that put the most effort in providing that service to delivering to customers than those employees who are sitting in an office facing a computer screen or whatever. A new payment system has been implemented for riders working in the front line in delivering for Deliveroo. The pay structure ranges from around £3.80 to £6 per DROP according to distance to where the takeaway is destined to the customer. £3.80 or so for short distances of less than a mile and £6 for distances of up to 3 miles but no less than 2 and a half miles and unlike the old system to which riders were paid by the hour, there is a risk factor in that meaning since riders are only paid by the drop today, if there is nothing to pick up to deliver over the course of an hour for example, you don't earn anything.

Rider support for cyclist couriers is nonsense. Many occasion I have phoned up, they barely understand what I am saying to them and It feels like they are reading from a script most of the time. They can barely understand the number "0" and "2" Deliveroo's Rider support are the very people who have never even been on the front line in delivering themselves therefore, will never know how it is or understand what any given rider phone's up about to them.

Current riders are encouraged to recruit new riders using their own unique referral code for a cash bonus. £50 for the new rider who completes a set amount of deliveries and £100 - £250 for the rider who referred the new rider. In doing so they do risk being tossed to one side after a while in favour of Deliveroo using new riders that have signed up to deliver for them. This would reflect in the availability of hours Deliveroo would make available to the rider, eventually on the schedule to any rider who has been delivering for Deliveroo for a while would see all hours on any day of the week as "FULL".

Boycotting. Deliveroo Ireland have been issuing warnings to restaurants in the republic of Ireland currently using the Deliveroo service of raising the commission rates from 30% to 35% while using the Uber Eats service at the same time (source - thejournal.ie)...