Why Is DoorDash So Bad? (9 Reasons Why)

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Maisie Hughes

Maisie Hughes is a 20-year veteran of the culinary world. She has worked as a chef in some of the most prestigious restaurants in the country, and she currently volunteers her time at local food banks.

As far as food delivery services go, there are plenty of options. You have different apps like UberEats, DoorDash, Grubhub, and Postmates.

If you’ve used DoorDash to get lunch or dinner delivered in the past, you may have received some dismal service, and so did many others! You may be asking, why is DoorDash so bad? There are plenty of other DoorDash users wondering the same thing!

Why Is DoorDash So Bad?


1. DoorDash Is Very Slow

If you’re ordering food for delivery, you’re probably either hungry or getting hungry. You’re going to want your food ASAP- and DoorDash is not good at that.

DoorDash is notorious for poor, slow delivery times. By the time you get your food, it could be several hours after you ordered- if you even get it!

It may seem like DoorDash is slow for no reason, but sometimes there could be a purpose. Depending on the time you order, or if there’s a car accident, there could be traffic.

There could also be issues with the restaurant’s kitchen. No matter what, though, the fact remains that DoorDash does nothing to incentivize quality and fast delivery.

2. DoorDash Won’t Notify You

Let’s say, for example, that there was an issue in the restaurant’s kitchen or even something horrible like your DoorDash driver getting into a car crash. You’d likely want DoorDash to tell you about that!

Unfortunately, another of DoorDash’s notorious habits is outright not telling customers about issues. Whether it’s a delay or an outright cancellation, you might not hear anything about it.

If your DoorDash order cancels for any reason and DoorDash doesn’t alert you, you may be sitting around and waiting for food that will never come. You could get very worried!

3. DoorDash Is Very Expensive

Ordering food from any app can get expensive, but with DoorDash, you’ll feel your wallet becoming lighter. DoorDash has an immense number of fees that can leave you astonished!

DoorDash has fees such as:

  1. A delivery fee
  2. A service fee
  3. A tip
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On top of that, you still have whatever the cost of your order was! The fees may seem small individually, but they rapidly add up.

DoorDash fees can vary widely with each order, to make matters worse. You might expect one price and get a higher one, which can double the amount you’re paying.

You don’t want to spend twenty-five dollars on a hamburger, but with the way DoorDash does its pricing, that’s what you might have to do.

Other delivery apps also have delivery and service fees that can even rival those of DoorDash. However, nobody can beat DoorDash at exorbitant prices.

4. DoorDash Lies About Tips

DoorDash Lies About Tips

As if their fees weren’t bad enough, Doordash is notorious for lying and being misleading about its tips. They not only lie to their customers, but to their drivers!

DoorDash had a policy where, instead of the customer’s tips going directly to the drivers, tips paid the drivers’ base pay- and anything extra counted as the tip!

DoorDash’s tipping policy was so egregious and so shady that they got hit with a lawsuit over it in 2019- by the Attorney General of Washington D.C., no less!

In the lawsuit, Attorney General Karl Racine alleged that Doordash may have misappropriated “millions of dollars in tips.” That’s a lot of money not going to the drivers!

DoorDash changed its tipping model after the lawsuit, with drivers now keeping 100% of tips, though they “strongly disagreed” with the Attorney General’s claims against them.

Then again, there’s not much to “strongly disagree” about when the judge agreed with the Attorney General! You would think that a company that relies on its drivers would treat its drivers better.

5. DoorDash Delivers Wrong Orders

When you order food, you will want what you ordered. According to many users, DoorDash can’t even do that right, making their countless fees seem useless.

In any restaurant, there’s the chance you could get the wrong order. In those cases, you can alert your waiter. They will take the dish back, and bring you the right one later.

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With DoorDash, that process is made significantly more difficult- you can’t just have your driver come back to your house, pick up your food, and bring it back to the restaurant.

If you alert DoorDash about this, you can get your money back, but by then you could be hungry. You won’t want to wait even longer for something to eat!

6. Drivers Don’t Like DoorDash

It’s safe to say most people don’t like at least some parts of their jobs, if not dislike their jobs entirely. It’s no shock that DoorDash drivers are no exception.

If you view the Indeed reviews for DoorDash, you see reviews that don’t paint a pretty picture of working for DoorDash. While the ‘Work-Life Balance’ is considered good, everything else isn’t!

One of the biggest complaints is a lack of support for DoorDash drivers, who can be left entirely in the dark for potentially big issues, like payments not going through. 

Driver support at DoorDash is so bad, that many drivers claim that DoorDash does not respect them. Between no support and low pay, it’s a wonder anybody drives for DoorDash at all.

7. DoorDash Doesn’t’ Ask For Permission

If you’ve been using DoorDash and found your favorite restaurant, they likely weren’t asked about being put on DoorDash.

DoorDash is known for adding restaurant menus to its roster without asking the restaurants in the first place. This is such a common issue that it’s made the news in several major cities.

It can be a huge issue for restaurant owners, who receive angry calls about cold food being delivered late- but the restaurant owners likely didn’t even know it was being delivered.

8. DoorDash Misclassified Its Workers

Apparently, not supporting and barely paying their drivers wasn’t enough for DoorDash- they had to misclassify them as well, making it almost impossible for drivers to get a tax return.

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Many DoorDash drivers and legal experts alleged that DoorDash classified their drivers as independent contractors when they should have been classified as employees. 

This is yet another issue that grew to be so bad that DoorDash got sued- in 2017, a class-action lawsuit was filed against DoorDash for this misclassification.

9. Your Food Gets Eaten

You would think that getting cold, late food is the worst thing that can happen, but no. Many customers report that DoorDash drivers have eaten some, if not most, of the food.

You would think it would be common etiquette to simply not eat your customer’s food, but it seems not. Perhaps they are so hungry from dealing with bad customer service, they can’t help themselves!

10. DoorDash Simply Doesn’t Fix Issues

If you’ve been paying attention to some of the listed dates, DoorDash’s issues have sometimes been going back as far as five years, with very little change in their practices. 

It seems like DoorDash just downright refuses to fix their issues, infuriating customers and drivers alike. One can only wonder how much longer they’ll be in business.

To know more, you can also read our posts on why airplane food is so bad, why hospital food is so bad, and why jail food is so bad.

In Conclusion

If you’ve used DoorDash before, you could be confused as to why people use it at all, and you’d be in the right to wonder why they’re in business. Many of their business practices are shoddy!

Thankfully, there are several other alternative apps you can use that may provide better service, such as UberEats, Grubhub, and Postmates.

Author

  • Maisie Hughes

    Maisie Hughes is a 20-year veteran of the culinary world. She has worked as a chef in some of the most prestigious restaurants in the country, and she currently volunteers her time at local food banks.

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