[mr_cyborg]

What I've found is that normally, the consumer - restaurant contract is between two parties. I pay food, I get to eat. If there's a problem, I tell the restaurant, and they fix it. There's ample opportunity to find an amicable resolution to any issues that arise.

When you add DoorDash or any other third party delivery service into the equation, you add two more parties to this - the service itself, and the driver, who is usually an independent contractor.

What this has led to in my experience is that when something goes wrong, instead of me working it out with the restaurant, I am left frustrated, hungry, and hung out to dry by three parties - the restaurant, the platform, and the contractor.

If you read enough of the DoorDash subreddit[1], you realize that a tip is not a gratuity for good service, it's a bid for an independent contractor to take up your delivery. However, you have no ability to choose which Dasher takes it, and they are under no obligation to represent you as your agent or look out for your interests. So if they show up and the food is cold, not their problem, they get the tip because they accepted the bid.

When DoorDash had a major outage some time back, I had placed an order for about $70, generous tip (because I realize it's really a bid) and fees included. My order was prepared and ready for pick up just as the whole platform went down. It was impossible to cancel my order, because DoorDash was down, so I made alternate arrangements for dinner and figure I'll reach out for a refund when things are back up.

About three hours later, I get a notification that my order is out for delivery. The optimist in me hoped that the restaurant saw that some food sat out in the "danger zone" for several hours and remade it, or that the Dasher realized that the containers weren't the slightest bit warm, or something like that, but nope. I got dropped off a lot of food that was beyond safe to eat, not even worth saving to have as leftovers for a later meal, and now I have to dispose of all of it.

When I finally got through to support later that night, I asked for a refund, and they said they could only give me a credit for the meal, not the tip. I said I want the whole order refunded to my original payment, they said well, here's a credit and it will convert over to that later. One week and several phone calls later, they stopped telling me it was "too late to get a refund" and I got my refund and uninstalled the app. I don't need that negative energy in my life.

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/doordash/

[dragonwriter]

> What this has led to in my experience is that when something goes wrong, instead of me working it out with the restaurant, I am left frustrated, hungry, and hung out to dry by three parties - the restaurant, the platform, and the contractor.

My experience with delivery services (mostly, but not exclusively, Postmates) is that they are usually very good at giving refunds (your experience clearly sucked, though!), which is nice (but I’m guessing not for the drivers, who may or may not be at fault), but that restaurants with their own delivery services have been more willing to send out the missing food on an expedited basis, which is often a better resolution (if I didn’t want the food more than the money, I wouldn’t have ordered in the first place.)

I’ve also noticed that wrong or missing food items are more common with third-party delivery services.

[kelnos]

> My experience with delivery services (mostly, but not exclusively, Postmates) is that they are usually very good at giving refunds

This has changed over time, though. For the first year or so of Postmates' existence, refunds were easy and near-automatic. It was trivial to get in touch with a support person, and their response to pretty much any complaint was either a refund or a (usually generous) credit. But after Postmates grew beyond a certain point, they got more stingy with refunds, and credit they offered -- if any! -- would be much lower.

I remember the same thing happening with Uber when it was new. Rating a driver under 4 stars would win you an unsolicited email from support, asking what went wrong, with a credit or refund for the ride. That pretty much never happens anymore.

Agree with you on restaurants, though. Restaurants that do their own first-party delivery are almost always better at customer experience and fixing things when something goes wrong. And it makes sense, too: DoorDash and the driver don't care if you end up with a negative impression of a restaurant because the food arrived cold. The consequences for DD are much less than the consequences for the restaurant. And even if you do call the restaurant, there's usually not much they can do, because they're not able to get DD to redo the delivery for free, and have no leverage over DD to give refunds.

[rhino369]

Doordash's refund algorithm is usually pretty fair, but sometimes it isn't. I order a lot, and once in a blue moon the order will be significantly messed up (missing entrees, for example) and they give a low ball offer.

[scarface_74]

I've gotten plenty of certificates from restaurants who gave me "a bad delivery experience", without my asking. I didn't even consider the experience "bad". It was something like the driver had a flat tire, called me and said he was going to be late and then said he would have the food remade. I said don't worry about it, bring the food cold (pizza) and I would just heat it up. I didn't even think about it anymore. But I still got a free coupon.

[scarface_74]

This is the same reason I never use "portals" to book travel and airlines. It's even worse because I also don't get any loyalty points.

Of course this is different with my work travel portal run by Concur. I get to keep the points/miles and "non refundable" tickets are refundable when the airlines are trying to stay in the good graces of a company that books...a lot.. of money in travel.

[chrisseaton]

> It's even worse because I also don't get any loyalty points.

All airlines and hotel groups I’ve used let you get points no matter where you book. Just need to use the website to claim the spend.