Who's sending mystery Uber Eats orders to LA neighborhoods? The plot thickens

LOS ANGELES — Separated by about 16 miles of traffic-snarled L.A. roads — and an income bracket or two — Westwood Hills and Highland Park may not seem like they have a lot in common.

But earlier this year, the neighborhoods were bound by a strange phenomenon: Days and days of unwanted food deliveries from Uber Eats.

In Highland Park, the errant orders were mostly met with bemusement, as The Times previously reported. But in Westwood Hills, an affluent neighborhood nestled between the UCLA campus and 405 Freeway, the free McNuggets were hardly just free McNuggets.

As deliveries from McDonald's, Starbucks and other restaurants piled up on people's doorsteps in late January, Terry Tegnazian, a member of the board of the Westwood Hills Property Owners Association, began hearing from worried neighbors, including one man who thought there could be "something nefarious and criminal going on."

The resident, Tegnazian said, wondered whether the orders, which were paid for and in the names of other people, were being sent