I had read about some of DoorDash's terrible tipping practices, and had made an effort to tip with cash in most cases to ensure that the driver was actually getting tip. "This will get around their questionable business practices" - me, a certifiable idiot.
Lo and behold, moron that I am, I had even signed up for their "loyalty" free-delivery program (at cost). Being a 100% dumdum, I had never actually done the math of calculating my own item total across dozens of deliveries, because who would commit such an obvious criminal act as charging a blatantly incorrect amount?
This is no case of "hidden fees" (like a 'service charge' being included in the Taxes and Fees line item); this is straight-up overbilling. It is a felony, and I believe the folks at DoorDash in charge of this decision should be prosecuted as criminals. CMV. Edit: I now believe this to be accidental, which would make this software error and not fraud.
Don't go full tater' like I did: DO NOT SUPPORT THIS RACKET. Edit: I now believe this to be accidental, which would make them a questionable company instead of one that practices illegal business practices.
---
Update/Edit #1: At the behest of some wonderful and thoughtful redditors, I've gone back and checked the math on some of my older receipts for order records in my DoorDash account:
-- For the historical order receipts I've checked (4) under my DoorDash account, the total math was correct. If this was the result of nefarious fraud it is certainly possible they're retroactively adjusting receipt amounts or adding in undisclosed fees to make the math add up in the records. That being said, doctoring digital receipts is a level of such unambiguous and easily-provable fraud I have a hard time believing anyone at such a sizable corporation would be stupid enough to do it.
-- I did not make the complete purchase on the order for the screenshot listed above (due to my outrage at having discovered the line item discrepancy), so I cannot check my credit card billing records to verify which of the two amounts would have been passed to the payment processor.
-- Upon discovery of the billing & total discrepancy, I was concerned whether it might be a momentary glitch/bug/fluke. I no longer have the order basket open, but I did take the time to refresh my web page, as well as prepare several "mock orders" at different restaurants in the app. The billing discrepancy persisted across all of my tests.
As such, I encourage and request any redditors to go to the website (or open the app if they've got it installed) and prepare mock orders to see if they find issues similar to what I posted above. Please post the results of what you find below
If this IS intentional microtransaction fraud, we should document it widely before they've an opportunity to hide their poor behavior. Alternatively, if it just happens to be bad web design (a glitch on my computer) then we should acknowledge that as well since it isn't a crime.
———
Edit/update 2:
/u/DoorDash has replied directly to this thread apologizing and that it’s been fixed - if you’re interested go and read it yourself. They’ve indicated it was a bug causing the subtotals to reflect less than what they should have, but that no one was actually charged more than they were “supposed” to be charged were their site working correctly. It’s hard to tell if it’s a legit account because this is the only comment they’ve made in 6 years but they’ve got the handle so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
I’m leaning towards believing that must be true. Based on where I live, the tax on prepared food is just under 10% between state and city. If I multiply the cost of the food in the order in the screen shot (~36 usd) by the tax rate, you see that the taxes and fees line item is below what it should be even if there’s a 0% service charge. I have a hard time believing they’d intentionally represent less taxes on the order than actually exist to “make the order seem cheaper”, especially given the potential for blowback like this. Since this no longer appears to be intentional, I’ll leave it to the mods to decide if it should be deleted since it no longer fits the sub.
I’ll run a test my self on another order tomorrow to confirm if the above is the case. If it’s been fixed, I’ll probably go ahead and delete the post - product accidents happen, no sense in misleading folks who will only see the image but not read through the thread; there might be any number of reasons to disagree with DD’s business model, but this specific issue probably isn’t one of them.
-------
Edit/update 3:
Wow, the comment section for this post is a doozy. I've been called an impressively diverse set of slurs by people who seem to misunderstand the point, so I'd like to set the record straight on a few things:-I'm not "anti-corporation" or against companies charging enough to make a profit. The only thing that's reprehensible in the screenshot is the fact the sub-line items do not add up to the total that's actually being charged to users, which if intentional, is a deceitful practice intended for financial gain.-Similarly, I'm not "anti-tip" or against deliverers making a livable wage.-I do not play playstation, nor am I morbidly obese.-Yes, getting or preparing my own food will solve this issue for me, personally. This post is was intended to warn others and bring visibility. I can at least say I was successful in that endeavor.
OK, now that we've got that out of the way, onto the facts:
- Of the redditors that performed their own mock test and posted the results, about half were able to replicate the line item discrepancy. The other half were not. Unfortunately, none who did report an issue with the test posted a screenshot, so I can't really testify to the legitimacy of their results.
- Of the redditors who did see the same issues I did, there was a self-reported correlation between the usage of dashpass (n=2) and seeing the issue. The important thing here is that because of the localized nature of the issue, it adds evidence for the issue not being intentional. I imagine if you were doing this on purpose, you'd probably make it uniform across users so as to not raise questions.
- Some users report seeing a similar or identical issue to the screenshot both while using dashpass and while not using dashpass as far back as a year ago. Unfortunately, I have not been able to reasonably verify whether it's the same issue or not - it could be a completely different 'bug'. /u/Doordash says that the mistake was a bug that was only introduced yesterday. As such, it is my opinion that the timelines for when this first started occurring are unclear - according to my personal receipts (unless the line items were changed in the transition from the check-out page to the confirmation/receipt page), yesterday was the first time this occurred to me.
- I have gone through and made a test order. As of 10 minutes ago, I am unable to replicate the total billing discrepancy with a dashpass, on the same browser, with the same basket as in the screenshot. It at least appears the issue has been fixed.
- Based on the evidence above, I believe it is more likely the issue is an accidental bug in the software than intentional deceit from Doordash. The tricky part about all of this is that the "bug" almost certainly resulted in financial gain for Doordash. I am very confident that the presence of high Taxes and Fees and Delivery charges is one of the largest causes of cart abandonment for DoorDash. Having those items appear artificially low almost certainly improved their conversion rate. Perhaps "preventing" or "fixing" this bug wasn't highly prioritized because it wasn't perceived as doing damage to the business venture - although that's pure speculation. Doordash's reputation as a business is not doing them any favors here - 99% of the comments have nothing to do with my post, but just general random disdain for the brand.
Accordingly: I will be deleting this post in a couple hours. Given the plausible deniability of fraud here, I think it is irresponsible for me to keep up a post that is denouncing fraud in the title. Too many people will just see the image, cement this into their brains because it conforms to confirmation bias, and not read the thread to understand the nuances of the situation. With 95K upvotes, we can probably at least feel confident that Doordash will institute a more rigorous QA process before deploying to prod.
To any employees of doordash that might be reading this:- If this was actually an accidental bug that only got deployed yesterday, I hope there aren't any web developers losing their job for this - mistakes happen in development, it's possible that this is a really statistically unfortunate situation.-To the doordash employee responsible for managing social sites: I'm sorry I made you get out of bed at 1 AM to comment on my stupid reddit post. I know you didn't have anything to do with my screenshot.
Everyone knows otherwise yet here we are, still being lied to*.
Edit TLDR: u/DoorDash has apologized here twice, fixed their glitch that added taxes and fees incorrectly, displaying the wrong total for orders.
oh and someone commented about a glitch that reloads your tip to default after hitting submit. And many other stories of displaying incorrect pricing, menus, and even the entire restaurants without permission.
But the tips are technically fixed after they were sued finally. Seriously, tip in cash or don't use the service.
mopej on November 21st, 2019 at 01:33 UTC »
I had read about some of DoorDash's terrible tipping practices, and had made an effort to tip with cash in most cases to ensure that the driver was actually getting tip. "This will get around their questionable business practices" - me, a certifiable idiot.
Lo and behold, moron that I am, I had even signed up for their "loyalty" free-delivery program (at cost). Being a 100% dumdum, I had never actually done the math of calculating my own item total across dozens of deliveries, because who would commit such an obvious criminal act as charging a blatantly incorrect amount?
This is no case of "hidden fees" (like a 'service charge' being included in the Taxes and Fees line item); this is straight-up overbilling. It is a felony, and I believe the folks at DoorDash in charge of this decision should be prosecuted as criminals. CMV. Edit: I now believe this to be accidental, which would make this software error and not fraud.
Don't go full tater' like I did: DO NOT SUPPORT THIS RACKET. Edit: I now believe this to be accidental, which would make them a questionable company instead of one that practices illegal business practices.
---
Update/Edit #1: At the behest of some wonderful and thoughtful redditors, I've gone back and checked the math on some of my older receipts for order records in my DoorDash account:
-- For the historical order receipts I've checked (4) under my DoorDash account, the total math was correct. If this was the result of nefarious fraud it is certainly possible they're retroactively adjusting receipt amounts or adding in undisclosed fees to make the math add up in the records. That being said, doctoring digital receipts is a level of such unambiguous and easily-provable fraud I have a hard time believing anyone at such a sizable corporation would be stupid enough to do it.
-- I did not make the complete purchase on the order for the screenshot listed above (due to my outrage at having discovered the line item discrepancy), so I cannot check my credit card billing records to verify which of the two amounts would have been passed to the payment processor.
-- Upon discovery of the billing & total discrepancy, I was concerned whether it might be a momentary glitch/bug/fluke. I no longer have the order basket open, but I did take the time to refresh my web page, as well as prepare several "mock orders" at different restaurants in the app. The billing discrepancy persisted across all of my tests.
As such, I encourage and request any redditors to go to the website (or open the app if they've got it installed) and prepare mock orders to see if they find issues similar to what I posted above. Please post the results of what you find below
If this IS intentional microtransaction fraud, we should document it widely before they've an opportunity to hide their poor behavior. Alternatively, if it just happens to be bad web design (a glitch on my computer) then we should acknowledge that as well since it isn't a crime.
———
Edit/update 2:
/u/DoorDash has replied directly to this thread apologizing and that it’s been fixed - if you’re interested go and read it yourself. They’ve indicated it was a bug causing the subtotals to reflect less than what they should have, but that no one was actually charged more than they were “supposed” to be charged were their site working correctly. It’s hard to tell if it’s a legit account because this is the only comment they’ve made in 6 years but they’ve got the handle so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
I’m leaning towards believing that must be true. Based on where I live, the tax on prepared food is just under 10% between state and city. If I multiply the cost of the food in the order in the screen shot (~36 usd) by the tax rate, you see that the taxes and fees line item is below what it should be even if there’s a 0% service charge. I have a hard time believing they’d intentionally represent less taxes on the order than actually exist to “make the order seem cheaper”, especially given the potential for blowback like this. Since this no longer appears to be intentional, I’ll leave it to the mods to decide if it should be deleted since it no longer fits the sub.
I’ll run a test my self on another order tomorrow to confirm if the above is the case. If it’s been fixed, I’ll probably go ahead and delete the post - product accidents happen, no sense in misleading folks who will only see the image but not read through the thread; there might be any number of reasons to disagree with DD’s business model, but this specific issue probably isn’t one of them.
-------
Edit/update 3:
Wow, the comment section for this post is a doozy. I've been called an impressively diverse set of slurs by people who seem to misunderstand the point, so I'd like to set the record straight on a few things:-I'm not "anti-corporation" or against companies charging enough to make a profit. The only thing that's reprehensible in the screenshot is the fact the sub-line items do not add up to the total that's actually being charged to users, which if intentional, is a deceitful practice intended for financial gain.-Similarly, I'm not "anti-tip" or against deliverers making a livable wage.-I do not play playstation, nor am I morbidly obese.-Yes, getting or preparing my own food will solve this issue for me, personally. This post is was intended to warn others and bring visibility. I can at least say I was successful in that endeavor.
OK, now that we've got that out of the way, onto the facts:
- Of the redditors that performed their own mock test and posted the results, about half were able to replicate the line item discrepancy. The other half were not. Unfortunately, none who did report an issue with the test posted a screenshot, so I can't really testify to the legitimacy of their results.
- Of the redditors who did see the same issues I did, there was a self-reported correlation between the usage of dashpass (n=2) and seeing the issue. The important thing here is that because of the localized nature of the issue, it adds evidence for the issue not being intentional. I imagine if you were doing this on purpose, you'd probably make it uniform across users so as to not raise questions.
- Some users report seeing a similar or identical issue to the screenshot both while using dashpass and while not using dashpass as far back as a year ago. Unfortunately, I have not been able to reasonably verify whether it's the same issue or not - it could be a completely different 'bug'. /u/Doordash says that the mistake was a bug that was only introduced yesterday. As such, it is my opinion that the timelines for when this first started occurring are unclear - according to my personal receipts (unless the line items were changed in the transition from the check-out page to the confirmation/receipt page), yesterday was the first time this occurred to me.
- I have gone through and made a test order. As of 10 minutes ago, I am unable to replicate the total billing discrepancy with a dashpass, on the same browser, with the same basket as in the screenshot. It at least appears the issue has been fixed.
- Based on the evidence above, I believe it is more likely the issue is an accidental bug in the software than intentional deceit from Doordash. The tricky part about all of this is that the "bug" almost certainly resulted in financial gain for Doordash. I am very confident that the presence of high Taxes and Fees and Delivery charges is one of the largest causes of cart abandonment for DoorDash. Having those items appear artificially low almost certainly improved their conversion rate. Perhaps "preventing" or "fixing" this bug wasn't highly prioritized because it wasn't perceived as doing damage to the business venture - although that's pure speculation. Doordash's reputation as a business is not doing them any favors here - 99% of the comments have nothing to do with my post, but just general random disdain for the brand.
Accordingly: I will be deleting this post in a couple hours. Given the plausible deniability of fraud here, I think it is irresponsible for me to keep up a post that is denouncing fraud in the title. Too many people will just see the image, cement this into their brains because it conforms to confirmation bias, and not read the thread to understand the nuances of the situation. With 95K upvotes, we can probably at least feel confident that Doordash will institute a more rigorous QA process before deploying to prod.
To any employees of doordash that might be reading this:- If this was actually an accidental bug that only got deployed yesterday, I hope there aren't any web developers losing their job for this - mistakes happen in development, it's possible that this is a really statistically unfortunate situation.-To the doordash employee responsible for managing social sites: I'm sorry I made you get out of bed at 1 AM to comment on my stupid reddit post. I know you didn't have anything to do with my screenshot.
Peace out Reddit, it's been fun.
stillakilla18 on November 21st, 2019 at 01:58 UTC »
Everyone knows otherwise yet here we are, still being lied to*.
Edit TLDR: u/DoorDash has apologized here twice, fixed their glitch that added taxes and fees incorrectly, displaying the wrong total for orders.
oh and someone commented about a glitch that reloads your tip to default after hitting submit. And many other stories of displaying incorrect pricing, menus, and even the entire restaurants without permission.
But the tips are technically fixed after they were sued finally. Seriously, tip in cash or don't use the service.
geokra on November 21st, 2019 at 02:25 UTC »
It’s so painful how many layers of fees there are too:
Delivery fee Service fee Markup on menu prices Probably more...
Just charge us $10 or something and be done with it!