DoorDash still hasn’t changed its tipping policy

https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/20/20825937/doordash-tipping-policy-still-not-changed-food-delivery-app-gig-economy

by t23 • 7 years ago

73 39 7 years ago

avs7332• 7 years ago

of course they haven't. Why would they? There is no penalty for just lying to their customers and continuing to profit from it.

peteretep2• 7 years ago

I feel like there's potential for a class-action lawsuit there on behalf of the customers.

avs7332• 7 years ago

for...?

asveikau• 7 years ago

There is, or maybe ought to be a penalty to getting caught and having users defect.

So perhaps they are calculating one or more of:

* Nobody will follow up and figure the claim that the policy will be changed was a lie

* If somebody does, people won't care, or won't care enough to stop using the app

tkifxxxxvvvv• 7 years ago

If you cared you would tip cash. The thing is, people don't care.

notus• 7 years ago

It is inconvenient to carry cash though. I would gladly tip cash if I didn't have to drive to an ATM just to get it thereby defeating the purpose of having something delivered.

auspex• 7 years ago

Why not keep a few hundred dollars in cash in a drawer for when you need it?

echelon• 7 years ago

I don't have, use, or want cash. My wallet consists of my ID and a few credit cards and nothing else.

Checks are another anachronism I don't own or use.

noodlesUK2• 7 years ago

This is incredibly annoying. Whilst I don’t really agree with tipping, it’s a strongly ingrained cultural norm in the US, and what I really don’t agree with is lying to your customers. I made a DoorDash order just a few minutes ago and it was the first time I had tipped cash to a delivery driver. The driver seemed to be pretty pleased. I’d use an alternative delivery service but I’m not sure which to use, and none of them seem to have the market penetration doordash has here in the NW.

Simulacra• 7 years ago

I stopped using delivery apps because of the tipping. I hate it and I'm doing my best to avoid it.

noodlesUK2• 7 years ago

Unfortunately when you’re in suburban US and you can’t or don’t want to drive, you’re stuck with little other choice sometimes...

bliblah• 7 years ago

Don't use a delivery service that isn't actually performed by the restaurant.

Every one of these services pays below minimum wage to their drivers and will use every trick in the book to make sure that any cost saving measures goes downstream to lower the amount paid to the drivers.

esotericn2• 7 years ago

Tip cash.

What, you can't be bothered? It's a faff?

Someone's job is to cart shit around the city, for you. To literally be your bitch.

Step up.

moreira• 7 years ago

What is it, in your eyes, that makes their job more worthy of tipping than any other job?

It’s a job, they get paid. I ordered something that cost $X including delivery, I expect that to be the final total, not $X + “step up”.

If they’re not getting paid enough, enforce a higher minimum wage (it is also a US-specific issue; tipping isn’t the norm in a lot of other developed countries and the world doesn’t end).

V-eHGsd_• 7 years ago

What is it, in your eyes, that makes their job more worthy of tipping than any other job?

I'll bite:

they're bringing a bespoke something to my door, i'm in my pajamas when I collect it, and I'm consuming it inside of 10 minutes.

next?

untog• 7 years ago

They're worthy of tipping because they get paid shit-all.

As you say, the actual answer here is tightening minimum wage laws so that they're actually effective, but given the state of DC these days I'm not holding out hope.

So I tip.

esotericn2• 7 years ago

I'm talking about the solution to a company stealing tips, not tipping in general.

This is an action you can actually take to improve a person's life right now (if you use these services and would have tipped anyway).

timoth3y• 7 years ago

How is this not wage theft?

It's been a very long time since I've waited tables, but a company keeping tips in this way is (or at least was) in serious violation of US labor laws.

codyogden• 7 years ago

It's my understanding that they skirt around this because the DoorDash drivers are contractors, not employees. Literally, when you tip using the app, you are tipping DoorDash, the company, not the contracted driver.

SpicyLemonZest• 7 years ago

Doordash says they never keep tips; they pay drivers the full amount of your tip always, plus some extra if you don’t tip enough. You can argue that’s not the right way to look at it, but it’s hard to argue that it’s factually wrong in a way that’d violate labor laws. No worker is getting less of a tip payout than the amount you tipped them.

jobigoud• 7 years ago

Aren't tips taxed differently than wage in the US? Anyway you can also see this as DoorDash always paying the wage and pocketing the tips. When the user tip goes towards the wage it's no longer a tip. If they were taxed differently it would be obvious.

duxup• 7 years ago

I've just tried to avoid the gig economy generally now.

It is all about pushing risk onto "contractors" and customers.

lacker• 7 years ago

It would be honest for them to simply remove tipping from their app. You don’t tip the UPS guy who delivers packages, why should the social consensus be to tip the DoorDash guy who also delivers packages. Pay them more to make up for it.

toomuchtodo• 7 years ago

UPS guy has a union and gets paid a living wage. DoorDash can’t afford to do the same.

spectramax• 7 years ago

Should we let the market forces play that out? No tip, less incentive to join Door Dash as a driver. Also fix the minimum wage laws.

Nullabillity• 7 years ago

Then DoorDash can't afford to operate.

pubutil• 7 years ago

In addition to what others have said, the UPS driver is an employee of UPS and gets benefits, PTO, etc. The DoorDash courier is a contractor, not an employee, and gets no benefits. The same goes for many emerging courier services: Postmates, Uber, Lyft, etc. People joining these services as couriers are getting burned in ways beyond what DoorDash has arranged for their couriers.

A DoorDash courier makes like $5/delivery. Most couriers work nights and get ~5 deliveries in a night. That’s $25/night or $750/month before gas, car maintenance, increased car insurance payments due to their courier job, etc.

For people who take this on as a second job, it’s barely worth it. For people who do this for a primary job, it’s a lot of work to barely keep your head above water.

As for the issue of tipping your food courier, I see it like this: you tip the pizza delivery guy, why not the DoorDash guy?

DoorDash still hasn’t changed its tipping policy

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