AI-generated food scams are the new takeout nightmare
Fast food customers are using AI to edit their photos in an attempt to scam the restaurants and delivery platforms they used to place their orders.
Image by Cybernews
Though not technically “deepfakes,” fast food customers are using AI to edit their photos in an attempt to scam the restaurants and delivery platforms they used to place their orders.
Companies such as Uber Eats, DoorDash, and other platforms are feeling the pinch, as brazen behavior like faking undercooked burgers and superimposing flies on the phony evidence is on the rise.
Another shocking element to this trend is the self-righteousness of publishing their illegal exploits on social media.
In April 2025, one X user shamelessly posted a photo of a burger with pink inside on his channel, as if it were still raw. The doctored image was placed alongside the original, perfectly cooked meal.
Racking up over a million views and hundreds of comments, the community pushed back with one user proclaiming, “This is the most lowdown broke boy shit I've ever seen.”
Editing my pictures so I can get my money back on DoorDash 🤝🏾 pic.twitter.com/lLLqB4rJWI
undefined 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐮𝐤𝐮𝐧𝐚 ☢ (@King_Sukunaaa) April 4, 2025
Then, along came a chicken leg. Not the usual sentence you’d read in a narrative, but over on Threads, another poster showed a successful dialogue with DoorDash and a refund of $26.60 that was processed for a duplicitous capture of a chicken leg that more resembled salmon.
And, as the trust in peers erodes, the gig economy, coupled with the unleashing of AI into mischievous pranks (as one Taco Bell drive-thru experienced last year), means it’s often one mortal's word against another.
Over the Christmas period, a customer shared on X that a delivery driver unashamedly took a food order, marked it as delivered, and chat-fished a photo of the bag outside the door.
Amazing. DoorDash driver accepted the drive, immediately marked it as delivered, and submitted an AI-generated image of a DoorDash order (left) at our front door (right). pic.twitter.com/aGHQx9eexi
undefined Byrne Hobart (@ByrneHobart) December 27, 2025
The trend is also creeping into retail. In India, one savvy customer used Gemini Nano to apply more cracks to a box of eggs in order to get a refund.
Someone ordered eggs on Instamart and only one came cracked.
undefined kapilansh (@kapilansh_twt) November 24, 2025
Instead of just reporting it, they opened Gemini Nano and literally typed:
“apply more cracks.”
In a few seconds, AI turned that tray into 20+ cracked eggs — flawless, realistic, impossible to distinguish.
Support… pic.twitter.com/PnkNuG2Qt3
And as the original post observed, “if even 1% of people start doing this, quick-commerce unit economics won’t just suffer – they’ll implode.”
