This is the astonishing moment a man dials 999 to report that his Uber Eats driver arrived without his food.
The video has been released by the Metropolitan Police after it was revealed that around one in seven of the 999 calls made to the force are genuine emergencies.
Another agitating example of a call wasting resources was a person phoning about a spider.
In the ‘ridiculous’ takeaway example, a call handler picks up the phone and asks the person on the other line what their emergency is.
He replies: ‘Hello sir. The problem is I have made an order online on the Uber Eats app and the delivery guy is here, and he doesn’t have my food.’
The emergency call handler responds: ‘Okay, then you need to bring that up with Uber Eats.’
He asks the man: ‘Why have you called the emergency services?’
The disgruntled customer says: ‘Because I’m trying to call Uber Eats, it’s not allowing me. I have nobody else to call.’
The call handler then gives the man a telling off for wasting time that could have been used responding to a real emergency.
A man dialled 999 to report that his Uber Eats driver had arrived without his food (file photo)
He continues: ‘No caller, this is not a life or death emergency. You need to contact Uber Eats or whatever number you can find.
‘This is not a police emergency and this will be labelled as a misuse call. Please do not dial 999 because your food is not there.’
The shocking figures have now led the police to remind Brits to only call the emergency number in urgent or life-threatening situations.
In the past year, call handlers have been contacted by people frustrated by their delivery drivers not turning up and in one instance because their dog was not coming back into the house.
The police said calls are taking up valuable handler time, stopping them from dealing with genuine emergencies and doing their invaluable job in keeping the public safe.
Commander Caroline Haines, who heads up the Met’s Command and Control, said: ‘When someone’s life is in danger, or a crime is being committed, seconds count. Unfortunately, too many people call 999 for things that simply aren’t an emergency or a matter for police.
‘These calls could mean someone who is in genuine need and danger must wait longer to get the help they urgently need.
‘That is why we’re running a campaign to remind the public of the other ways they can contact us. Let’s keep 999 free for those who genuinely need it.’
Some of the main reasons for calling 999 unnecessarily included asking for updates on previous crime reports, reporting crimes which aren’t immediately happening; reporting items stolen days or even weeks later, or civil disputes, such as arguments between tenants and landlords.
People were told to call 101 to report a crime that has previously happened or low-level situations such as a noise complaint or minor anti-social behaviour.
Those who accidentally call 999 are asked to stay on the phone until they have spoken to an operator, otherwise handlers have to spend time undertaking a risk assessment to make sure the person who called isn’t in danger.
In the year to July over four million incidents were reported and over 2.2 million of these were reported via 999 calls of which only 15% required an immediate dispatch.
More than one in five callers abandoned the call, and 21% were ‘Contact record’ instances where people are ringing to report further information on a crime already reported or to request a crime reference number, in some cases where they’d had it but had lost it.