Have you ever ordered some takeout or fast food from Uber Eats or Grubhub and found out that there is no Uber Eats couriers nearby?
Did you get a message saying that you won’t be able to get your food delivered?
No, you haven’t been hit with an Uber deactivation.
This is simply a common error many customers face in times of high demand.
If this has happened to you, you’ll want to check out our guide to learn why this happens and what type of solution you could pursue.
You wouldn’t want to be left with no food delivery option, so keep reading to learn more about this issue.
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What is the “No Uber Eats Couriers Nearby” Message?
Sometimes, you may have ordered food via Uber Eats and found a message stating that there are no drivers available to deliver your delicious meal.
The “No Uber Eats couriers nearby” message means that the system has either sent your food delivery request to couriers in your location, but no couriers were working at the time of your request, or all the couriers in your area were busy with other food delivery orders.
As such, there is generally no one available to deliver your meal at the time.
Reasons for the Message
As previously mentioned, there are multiple reasons why you may have seen a message stating that there are “no Uber Eats couriers nearby.”
However, there may be some other reasons that we didn’t mention previously.
The reasons why you may have seen the message are:
- Uber Eats is down
- High demand may take more time to assign a courier
- Delivery drivers may not take your order because of a long drive or a lengthy wait in line to get your food
This type of issue can also happen more regularly among people who live in rural regions.
Furthermore, if you’re ordering food pretty late at night, it’s unlikely you’ll find a courier to deliver your meal or dessert.
Wherever you live, there are many reasons why you may see the message stating there are no couriers who can deliver your food anytime soon.
Lack of Couriers in Your Area
You may live in a rural location, or the couriers in your area may not be working if you’ve ordered food late at night.
As such, there could be a lack of couriers in your region, and Uber Eats may have sent you the message, “No Uber Eats Couriers Nearby.”
Most of the time, it takes only five minutes to assign a courier for your street food delivery.
However, sometimes, there may be tons of food orders at the same time slot, especially in popular cities.
This means you may not be able to find a courier in your area if they’re all busy with other food delivery orders.
Uber Eats is Down
Sometimes, Uber Eats is down and, even though there are plenty of drivers available, you may be left waiting for half an hour before a courier is assigned to deliver your order.
Luckily, the amount of times that users experience DoorDash down and Instacart down far surpasses Uber Eats going down, but it does still happen.
How can you tell if Uber Eats is down and the delivery app isn’t working?
You can take some steps to see if the delivery app is just not working on your smartphone or mobile device.
First, whether you have an Android phone or an IOS, refresh the app on your smartphone.
Then, try clearing the browser’s cache on your device.
Lastly, be sure to clear your browser’s third-party cookies.
Check to see if there is a cookie statement or if third-party ad cookies are enabled.
If your delivery app is still not working, you can check out the users’ Uber Eats outages via our guide on Downdetector.
Drivers Aren’t Accepting Your Order
As previously discussed, drivers may not accept your order if their drive is rather long to get to the restaurant or cafe.
In addition, if a line takes too long to get the food, it’s not worth a driver’s time to wait for a small payout.
Uber Eats drivers are often looking to save money on gas and need gratuity to ensure they make enough money to pay their bills.
As such, some drivers will be unable to accept your order, especially if the payout is too small of an amount.
Therefore, you may want to order the more expensive top dishes for drivers to take your order.
How to Fix “No Uber Eats Couriers Nearby” Message
There are four ways you can fix the “No Uber Eats couriers nearby” message.
Keep reading to find out the solutions to this problem.
Change Your Delivery Preferences to Pick Up
You can change your settings on Uber Eats and state that you will pick up your meal by yourself and are not looking to have it delivered.
Change Your Restaurant Preferences
If you don’t want to pick up your order by yourself, you can change the local restaurant from where you want your food and choose to have it delivered from popular chains.
Develop a Customized Restaurant Search with Uber Eats
You can make a more personalized restaurant name search through Uber Eats using topics such as popularity, rating, diet, price range, and delivery time.
You can choose the Shake Shack, the McDonald’s restaurant, or a local sushi or pizza restaurant.
By choosing the best restaurant features with full menus and shortest delivery times, you’ll have more chances to avoid the problem of no couriers being available.
Purchase the Priority Delivery Option
The Uber Eats app has also introduced a priority delivery option.
This means you’ll have priority over other orders to have your food delivered first.
However, you will need to pay an extra delivery fee for a priority food delivery service.
Restaurants can also create their own rewards program and incentivize with this feature, similar to Uber Rewards.
What Happens if Uber Eats Can’t Find a Driver?
If Uber Eats cannot find a delivery driver for your order at all, the order will be canceled, and your payment will be refunded straight to your card.
This process ensures that no one will be waiting too long for their order, and there won’t be any lingering orders sticking around on the app.
Can You Cancel an Uber Eats Order if it Takes Too Long?
You can definitely cancel an Uber Eats order if it’s taking too long to get your food delivered.
Go to the bottom of the menu bar, select your latest order, hit the “cancel order” button, and check the confirmation page where you need to click “cancel order” again.
You can also give Uber Eats feedback explaining why you canceled the order.
However, you should be aware of a few things before you click cancel.
Do you Get Charged?
If you cancel too late, your driver may already be on their way with your meal.
As such, you will get charged for this cancellation.
Will Uber Eats Refund the Cancellation Charge?
You can still get a full refund if you cancel your order, as long as you cancel within minutes before the restaurant accepts the order request.
You can also get a partial refund if you cancel after the restaurant cooked your food but before the driver picked up your meal.
Otherwise, it’s a good idea to wait for Uber Eats to cancel your order themselves if there are no couriers available to pick up your food.
That way, you’ll get a full refund, and you won’t need to cancel.
Wrapping Up
If you’ve received the “No Uber Eats Couriers Nearby” message after ordering a meal, you can take a few steps to solve this issue.
You can customize the restaurant search and pick one with the fastest delivery times, best prices, and most popular options.
In addition, you can change the restaurant you chose and potentially find a courier near the new food establishment.
If nothing else works, you can pay an extra fee for the priority delivery option.
These solutions should help ensure you’ll always have a way to get your food delivered to your home.
