Two local families say recent Grubhub and Amazon deliveries cost them more than money. Both say they had their lawns trashed by delivery drivers representing the two popular services.
Heather Przystas of Worcester says a lost Grubhub driver who got stuck on her lawn last October.
“The whole front of the yard has tire tracks,” said Przystas. “Had to have been six to eight inches deep in our yard.”
She sent a police report and pictures of the damage to her insurance agent, who planned on filing a claim against the driver. But it turned out that the woman behind the wheel was not carrying insurance at the time, so the insurance agent contacted the company.
“Grubhub came back to him and said, 'All of our drivers are contractors, and they carry their own insurance. We are not responsible for this. We’re really sorry that it happened with one of our drivers, but this isn’t something we’re going to fix,'" Przystas said. "We were absolutely between a rock and a hard place, and there was nowhere to go, and that’s when I reached out to you guys.”
NBC10 Boston Responds contacted Grubhub and asked the company to look into the situation. After they confirmed the details, Przystas received a $1500 check to repair the damage to her lawn.
Grubhub told NBC10 Boston in a statement: “We require all delivery partners to maintain insurance, and we thoroughly investigate all allegations of drivers not maintaining insurance."
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"We terminate our contracts with any delivery partners who are proven to not have insurance, and as such, we terminated the contract of the driver who was involved in this incident.”
Meanwhile, over in Grafton, a viewer who did not want his name used reached out to NBC10 Boston Responds after an Amazon driver was caught on tape running over his lawn in February after making a delivery at his neighbor’s house.
The incident was recorded on the resident's garage-mounted camera. The viewer says he contacted us after several failed attempts to get the matter resolved.
We contacted Amazon, and they cut him a check for $200 to replace the grass.
Amazon wrote in a statement: “We have addressed this with the delivery service partner and have resolved the issue with the customer.”
Both viewers are now looking forward to enjoying their green grass this spring.
“Thank you guys for helping us out,” said Przystas “It’s a yard, but we worked a long time for this house, and we’re kind of proud of it.”
Video can be very helpful when filing claims in these types of cases. If your property is damaged and you don’t have surveillance cameras, ask a neighbor if their camera might have caught any of the action. If not, document the damage by taking your own photos and videos immediately.
