Houston restaurant claims Uber Eats owes them more than $20,000

HOUSTON - A local family-owned business claims Uber Eats owes them money from more than 700 orders, or an estimated $20,000. 

Walk down the stairs at Underground Food Hall on Prairie and Main Street downtown and discover tacos galore at Birria Los Primos, a family-owned business by Emily Garcia and her father, Oscar. 

"It's Mexican and we do birria which is originally from Guadalajara, Jalisco. But it’s tijuana style," Garcia said. 

Since opening in March, Garcia says they haven’t received any money from Uber Eats.

"It’s about 709 orders since March that we’ve collected. We reached out to them the first time to have our bank accounts updated and then from there, it was just constant struggle to get them to answer our emails. We would try calling them. We still haven’t heard an actual answer as to when we will see that money," Garcia said. 

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Garcia said a typical order costs about $30 so with more than 700 orders owed, that totals to more than $20,000.

Third party sales, like Uber Eats, make up nearly 20% of their revenue. With only seven employees, the money owed is a make or break. 

"It’s not only affecting our family and our livelihood, but also the livelihood of the employees that we are responsible for because at the end of the day, if we’re not getting paid by Uber or by any of these other third party delivery companies, we still have to pay our bills and we still have to pay our employees," Garcia said. 
 
On Tuesday, Garcia was notified by an Uber Eats official about a potential fraud alert when they attempted to update some bank information back in March, and that more personal information was required from the business. 

"If it was something as simple as confirm some personal information, how come it’s taken five months and an Instagram post with thousands of likes and multiple media outlets reaching out for them to let us know that there is something wrong with our account? As soon we see that money deposited in our bank account, we definitely will be ending our business relationship with them," Garcia said. 

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In a statement, an Uber spokesperson said, "Upon review, we are working through our standard payment verification process with this restaurant. Our team is working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and have reached out to the restaurant to discuss."