The UberEats OCUS Photo Shoot Scam

There are lots of scams going around these days. With COVID destroying the world economy and individuals and businesses alike looking for more income, foreign companies with no respect for local laws are moving in to take advantage of the situation and line their pockets. Working with Ocus, UberEats is no exception.

In May 2020 I returned to Canada from Bangkok. The trip back was something I hope I never have to experience again. The airports were empty, even in Asia. Most airlines had laid off their staff and almost every flight was grounded. I remember standing in Incheon looking out a window at the empty skies thinking "what am I going to do when I get home?". After arriving back to Canada and serving my quarantine time in a basement in downtown Toronto I decided I needed to do my part and help the economy pick up again.

Over the previous winter I had signed up to work with a company called Ocus. Ocus, who is supposedly based out of France, offered a great opportunity photographing food for UberEats. The process was simple enough. I uploaded some sample images and they approved me. I entered my bank information and about 3 weeks later received 120 USD for my test work.

Because I was in Thailand and COVID had hit there was no work from OCUS there and my account sat dormant. When I returned to Canada I was very happy to see the map in the area where I would select work from was populating quite well.

Within a couple weeks I was out regularly using my fancy photographic equipment to take some basic photos and get restaurants online. I really felt I was doing something good to help while COVID was crushing the sales of these places.

The shoots were simple enough. I simply had to shoot to mimic the Ocus specifications required by UberEats and upload the packages in a Zip file. Ocus would do the post (Photoshop editing) and I would get a cut that would cover my costs for the shoot if not make a little extra.

Ocus openly provided all kinds of contact info for the restaurants in the area including phone numbers, contact names, email addresses, restaurant mailing addresses, billing addresses and the location. Right from the beginning I found this odd I will admit. With no background verification, no proof of who I was really, Ocus opened up their database through a map online and allowed me to access a mountain of data about these businesses.

Restaurants right here, you need to beware using UberEats. When I was unable to export my appointments to Outlook and sync to my phone I decided to use an application called a web scraper. The way this app works is it reads the web page you load in it as a document, like if you were to open a MS Word doc but the app does it in code. The app then reads the data and copies specified information into a spread sheet. When I used the scraper to pull the info I needed for my appointments it ran for about 3 hours. Normally these apps are pretty quick and I only had about 7 appointments but I had thought my internet connection may have been a bit slow. Later I went to import the spread sheet into Outlook and was I ever shocked. At first I was confused at the size of the document. A spread sheet for 7 appointments at close to 200 MB? That's crazy. Then I opened the sheet. Every restaurant in the Ocus database that is located in Toronto Ontario was now on my hard drive, in nice, neat order. It was all sorted out into columns like Contact Name, Phone Number, Address, Email Address etc. A telemarketers dream and a businesses worst nightmare. The scraper even grabbed all the internal notes made by agents and other photographers. Very detailed.

As August 2020 came around OCUS decided to dump the full database from UberEats onto the availability map. This added to my workload in many ways. Ocus did not do any of the calling, I had to handle it all myself. There were no set appointments I had to earn the restaurants trust and get them to get a date and time they could do a shoot. I would tell them "I am a photographer contracted to work with UberEats. Uber has requested a photoshoot of 7 dishes plus 1 hero compilation shot.". The shoots were offered at no cost to the restaurant except the food. A lot of places had just reopened and were anxious to do whatever they could to get online. Some could only afford to produce 4 dishes or less while others made more than 7. This was all great and again I thought I was helping my community. When they were short on dishes we would use things like drinks or pre-packaged sauces they sell to fill in the missing images. Whatever needed to be done, the restaurants and I did with the understanding that UberEats was paying for the photos and Ocus would make sure they looked fantastic before they were displayed.

When the end of August hit, I expected to see a deposit for July. The images I had taken in July were already on the UberEats app and now I simply needed to be paid to transfer the copyrights over to UberEats. I was not really OK with UberEats using images before I was paid but it was helping the restaurants and there was no need to rock the boat. Ocus was invoiced the start of August and payment was to be sent in 30 days, not a big deal. Unfortunately the deposit never came.

I contacted a woman using the name Marie-Helena at Ocus and we even spoke on the phone. She told me a bunch of excuses and nonsense about the automated system, how it pays on the 30 day mark and its to ensure payments don't get delayed or have issues. By the end of the conversation I informed her I had approximately 100 images on my computer and I would not upload any more until I receive my payment for July. I told her I would continue to make my appointments that I had booked, I would not take any new ones and when I received the payment I would resume uploading again. She assured me the payment would be taken care of within 2 days time and not to worry. I refused to budge on uploading the images I had and we agreed it is what it is at that point.

After 2 days, I still had no payment and I messaged Marie back. I sent the email to her on a Thursday mid day. She replied back the following Friday at the end of the day. To summarize the message, it said not to worry I would get my payment by the following Tuesday and to upload the images I had and to enjoy my long weekend. I replied back that is not acceptable and I will not upload anything until I received payment.

At this point I had already started to take action. Because there is no way to contact UberEats directly and no way to contact Ocus directly I had to contact the restaurants. I informed them that they needed to remove any image they are using that I took as I had not received a payment for them yet and I was concerned that the restaurants would be blamed for copyright infringement. Both UberEats and Ocus like to hide behind FAQS and emails that take days or even weeks to get a response over. Clearly they like to hide from any type of accountability. Any restaurant that deals with UberEats will tell you they have no way to directly contact their rep aside from an Email. If you are one of those restaurants I have to ask, why would you do business with a company that is too afraid to answer a phone when you need to call?

When the following Tuesday rolled around, I still had no deposit and no contact from UberEats or Ocus. They clearly did not care that they were breaking laws here in Canada for many many different things. I contacted Ocus again, both through their dash and by emailing this Marie woman directly. I think in their minds if they delay responding it allows them to alleviate some of the guilt. Luckily for me that really is not how these things work.

In the end UberEats is illegally using my images. I have no way to tell them directly to take them down. Ocus has not paid me and neither company has any right to continue using the images. I have contacted the government here in Canada as well as the national news and I have the support of many of the restaurants I worked with. Eventually I will collect on the thousands that are owed but the big question is who will pay me?

As cases of Covid were rising in Toronto and everyone was afraid to venture out into public I traveled by train, bus, subway, taxi, car and on foot all over Ontario for these companies. I risked my health, my well being and used funding from the Canadian Government for Covid relief to fund my costs. I ended up not getting paid by Ocus or UberEats. UberEats and Ocus both showed no care for the businesses they are harming, the sensitive data they are openly sharing on the internet or for the laws in Canada and other countries regarding things like work permits, hazard pay or copyright. They seem to think they are untouchable and can do as they like. If you are a Canadian and you use Uber you are validating them. Uber requires an immediate boycott in Canada and should not be allowed to operate here as long as Ocus holds any contracts for them. How many people did they take advantage of during COVID just to line their own pockets? Why is that acceptable? Remember that the next time you use Uber. You may save 2 dollars on a taxi but they provide that by taking advantage of your fellow citizens.