Delivery rider banned from local McDonalds after viral video she posted attracted negative comments

2023-03-01 15

A delivery rider who gets millions of views on TikTok posting about her job has been banned from her local McDonalds after one of her viral videos attracted negative comments about the restaurant.

Atlanta Martin, 22, went to pick up an order from a branch of the fast food chain when staff refused to give her the customer's food

It later emerged in a statement by McDonalds PR department that she was banned over claims she videoed staff.

But the mum-of-one vehemently denies this and is adamant she never posts clips that show staff members' faces.

Atlanta quit her job at Gatwick Airport in 2021 to deliver takeaway food full time.

Now she takes millions of people along with her for the ride by documenting her life as a delivery driver on social media, with tens of thousands of followers on TikTok and YouTube.

In her most successful video - which was viewed 2.7million times on TikTok - she walked out of McDonald’s in Worthing, West Sussex, after waiting more than 25 minutes for an order.

More than 1,300 people commented underneath the viral video, which was ‘liked’ more than 140,000 times.

During her next visit to the fast food restaurant, Atlanta was told by a member of staff: “We are not allowed to give you your orders anymore.”

But McDonald’s claimed there was a different reason for the ban.

A spokesman for the US-based fast food chain said staff asked the delivery driver to stop filming staff at work "on more than one occasion".

"As the filming continued", the restaurant requested that delivery partners "turn off McDonald’s deliveries for this particular courier" to "respect the wishes of our people".

But Atlanta disputed this and said she would have stopped filming if asked and said she ensures staff members’ faces are never included in her videos,

Atlanta said she thinks she was banned because the video went viral and it was filled with comments criticising the restaurant.

Atlanta said as far as she was aware, she has been permanently banned from picking up orders from the Worthing branch, but added she will carry on picking up from other McDonald's restaurants.

Atlanta added: "I contacted McDonald’s [head office] and they said they could not override any decision of the store. I’m not going to bother going in there to try to talk to them.

"I think I’m allowed to order for myself but I’m not going there out of principle."

Atlanta used to be a flight dispatcher for EasyJet when she began documenting her part-time job as a delivery driver, where she said she can earn £1,000-a-week.

Shortly after her video content took off in March last year, she decided to quit her day job to focus on ferrying food to hungry Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats customers.