An Uber Eats courier is hanging around outside a McDonald's and pinching colleagues' orders, they have claimed.

The man rides a red scooter, has three phones and waits outside the restaurant in Commercial Road, Strood, making every effort to avoid conversation.

Workmates reckon he is using software which alters his GPS settings to send him to the front of the queue.

One said he is picking up four or five orders an hour, four times more than everyone else.

He added: “He collects one and as soon as he arrives from a delivery goes straight to the counter and collects another.

“He must be earning double what everyone else is.

"Quite a few people are mad with him but he acts like someone who is shameless beyond doubt.

“The other riders just sit and watch him in and out all day long in despair.

“I observed him for an hour getting four times the amount of orders as everyone else.

“I have been told he has been chased off from a previous city.

"Everyone is suffering... people have families and struggle to work when he is there"- Uber Eats courier

“Everyone is suffering. People have families and struggle to work when he is there.

“Something needs to be done to stop this.”

Uber Eats is a takeaway delivery app which sends orders to riders in an area, who often use push bikes or mopeds.

An algorithm should distribute business evenly.

But it took less than a minute of browsing on YouTube to find someone explaining how to manipulate GPS locations.

The video shows how using a free app riders can lie about their location.

In theory someone with three accounts on three phones could effectively be waiting in three queues and get triple the amount of orders.

Uber riders are classed as self-employed and don’t have a union so many resort to seeking help on online forum UberPeople.net.

Riders in America were the first to say colleagues were ‘hacking’ the system but last year a British user also reported the issue.

On the forum, he said he confronted the man who admitted using the software and offered to sell it to him for £1,000.

He added: “He admitted to using some kind of script that blocks us from receiving jobs and then using GPS hacking to jump the queue and be first in line when the orders arrive.

“Like that wasn’t bad enough, he said he runs a crew in different areas with the same set up and then tried to without any shame recruit us to work for him for a 20% cut.”

Uber was unable to confirm if it was investigating either incident but said: “Participating in fraudulent activity of any kind is a clear violation of our terms and conditions.

“Couriers who are found fraudulently or illegitimately using the app risk being permanently deactivated.”

On the forum an unofficial security investigator told the Strood-based courier they were aware of the situation and were in the process of investigating the claims.