DoorDash said his son’s $15 bagels were delivered, so Dad searched frantically — until a doorknob in the driver’s photo exposed the scam
Suspicious of the completed status, Palmieri decided to review the driver's uploaded image
From deepfake voice clones to convincing phishing schemes, the world is witnessing firsthand how Artificial Intelligence is breeding new varieties of scams. Recently, Michael Palmieri (@michael.mini.motors) fell prey to the latest and most peculiar version of these scams. The incident occurred when the Eastdale resident attempted to calm his son by ordering him a bagel. He placed a $15 order on DoorDash, but it never arrived, despite it being marked completed. So, he searched his property in a panic, hoping he might have overlooked it. But upon viewing the picture from the delivery driver, he realized what happened. Palmieri took to Instagram to detail the entire story on August 13, 2026, garnering over 478,000 views.
A frantic morning order
Handling a tough start to the day because his wife was seeing some patients, Palmieri turned to food delivery to calm down his son. "He was giving me a really hard time," he explained. Unable to leave the house himself, he decided to DoorDash some bagels from a nearby place for a quick breakfast. However, he was left stunned after the order was marked as completed, even though there was no indication of the item being delivered. When he opened the door to check whether that was actually the case, he found his porch to be empty.
A telltale AI image
Suspicious of the completed status, Palmieri decided to review the driver's uploaded image. As soon as he saw the image, especially the doorknob, he realized it wasn't real. Rather, it was an AI-generated image of his porch. "It's AI-generated. It looks like the entryway to my house, but a delivery person never came," he noted. As it turns out, the driver had uploaded a fake image of the order left at the door and uploaded it and the system couldn't tell it was AI-generated.
Resolution after going viral
Initially, when Palmieri tried explaining this to the DoorDash representatives to get a refund on his $15 order, they rejected it. It wasn't until he posted this video on his Instagram account exposing the entire scam that it compelled DoorDash to look into the matter. Once they reviewed it, not only did they refund Palmieri his money, but they also delivered him some bagels. This finally brought a close to this ordeal. However, on the other hand, it highlighted the rise in AI-related scams.
AI scams are costing millions
Palmieri was lucky to be able to come out of this scam unscathed. That is because these AI-related scams are wreaking havoc within the United States. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Internet Crime Report for 2025, 22,364 AI-related complaints were registered, with victims reporting approximately $893.3 million in losses. Of these cases, the victims' losses were approximately $893.3 million. This goes to show exactly why 52% of Americans are concerned about the increased use of AI in their daily lives, up from just 37% in 2021, according to a Pew Research report.
It's ruining things for others
People were baffled by the entire incident, as they expressed their thoughts in the comments. @mrswilliams320 commented, "As a DoorDash driver, that's crazy... because the app would not let you do it because you can get out of the app and it's timed. But that is horrible if someone actually did this because you would have to do a lot to do this... I hate ruining it for good drivers." Meanwhile, @tizjust.kris noted, "Show DoorDash the missing video camera, video camera footage of the time it said it dropped off, and how the key code lock isn’t there."
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