Investigation: The black market behind your takeaway
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 2023
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A Sunday Times investigation has found that drivers for Deliveroo, UberEats and other takeaway apps, are selling access to their accounts to people who do not have the right to work in the UK. Many of these buyers are undocumented migrants. And since all earnings go to the account holder – not the drivers renting the account – nothing prevents these workers from being exploited. This podcast was brought to you thanks to the support of readers of The Times and The Sunday Times. Subscribe today: thetimes.co.uk/storiesofourtimes.
Guest: Venetia Menzies, Digital and Data Journalist, The Times and The Sunday Times.
Host: Taryn Siegel.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Sharla Ivers, the political correspondent at Times Radio and a columnist for the Sunday Times. |
| 0:05.8 | Every day I'm searching for the humour in the comings and goings of our political masters, |
| 0:10.7 | and hopefully trying to hold them to account along the way. I wouldn't be able to do this without |
| 0:14.8 | the subscribers to the Times and the Sunday Times. Subscribe today and only pay £1 for three months. |
| 0:20.9 | Visit the Times.co.uk forward slash podcast offer, Terms and Conditions Apply. |
| 0:30.4 | Hello, it's Manveen. Today's episode is about a Sunday Times investigation into the gig economy, |
| 0:38.3 | and to guide you through it, I'm going to hand over to one of our talented producers, |
| 0:42.8 | Taran Siegel. |
| 0:45.7 | If there was a job in my country, I would stay in my country, I would stay in my country, |
| 0:54.6 | and live in my country, and he's being voiced by a producer. |
| 1:09.5 | I miss my country a lot, I miss my lads, everything in my country, I miss. |
| 1:14.8 | I've been living in the UK a few years ago, illegally. |
| 1:23.4 | After landing here, he was told there was only one way to make a living. |
| 1:31.9 | Working as a delivery driver for Deliveroo. |
| 1:34.7 | I worked in a market and got some money, and then I went to rent a Deliveroo account. |
| 1:52.0 | Adam was renting someone else's account, paying a deposit and a weekly fee, |
| 1:56.7 | to use the account of someone who has the right to work since Adam doesn't. |
| 2:01.2 | On Facebook, a black market is thriving, hundreds of people are renting their accounts to those |
| 2:09.4 | that don't have the right to work, and sometimes scamming them out of thousands of pounds, |
| 2:14.0 | all because of something called a substitution clause. |
| 2:23.6 | All the undocumented people are left just working for Deliveroo. |
| 2:27.9 | Without delivery, we'll be out of options. |
... |
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