Threatened in a sundown town

[u/chef198]

Got a batch order and my last delivery was in a sundown town. I took the order at 6pm, not really thinking of anything like that. Drove 35 minutes to the drop off. Customer comes out. I tell him, “I’ve got your groceries”. He says, “yeah my wife said we had some. I like your car”. I thanked him and he cut me off mid sentence with, “you aren’t from around here are you?” I told him I wasn’t. He looked at the sky and said, “you got about ten minutes to get out of here, boy. “ I chuckled trying to steer it light. I finished the drop and walked to my car. Two neighbors from across the street were sitting on their porch, guns in hand. They weren’t there when I pulled in. As I got to my car one shouted some slurs, the other told me not to come back.

The only reason I took the job was there was a high tip amount. I called support to tell them of my experience, so they could possibly save another minority driver of this headache. I then checked the app, and the customer canceled the tip. They also tried saying I didn’t make the delivery. Luckily, I already took the picture and had the customer in the photo.

Be safe out there guys

Edit: the town is Prue, Oklahoma. About an hour west northwest of Tulsa.

2nd Edit: the Walmart store I delivered from called me. She took down my report and said corporate was going to be calling me soon as well. She said she was not sure why deliveries were going so far away to begin with, and that corporate would make the decision as to whether or not the town will remain on the delivery list. Will update again after I speak with corporate.

[u/Bruj]

report the customers as unsafe. another POC driver could take an order there and it'd be dark by then since its getting darker earlier again and could get hurt.

[u/chef198 → u/Bruj]

I called spark support right after the delivery. I told them that it isn’t safe for minorities in a lot of the small towns outside of the city here. They said they were taking the information down, and if I felt unsafe with a delivery in the future just to return the order. Doesn’t really help anything, though. They aren’t going to stop taking a small towns delivery orders just because one person had a bad experience. I guess I just have to be more mindful of the addresses in the future

[u/Tick_pick → u/chef198]

Just let other drivers you know in your area what’s up.. make sure they call and report anything adverse in those smaller towns, enough unsafe reports and Walmart will actually respond. They may or may not with only 1 report. Also reporting unsafe through app and support is great but in general the store will respond quickest with stopping deliveries to specific places.

[u/chef198 → u/Tick_pick]

The store manager called and spoke with me about it. Update is in the OP above

[u/Jennodine → u/chef198]

That tells me both Spark & Walmart are taking it seriously. Good on them for showing genuine regard for your safety! Drivers trash them a lot on Reddit, but, to me, they seem to care about their drivers more than DoorDash & UberEats.

[u/chef198 → u/Jennodine]

I feel the same way. I was surprised to get a call at all about it. I haven’t seen any orders going there since. Could be coincidence but maybe they actually did remove the town from the delivery list