
Delivery apps like DoorDash are using tips to pay workers’ wages - oblib
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/22/20703434/delivery-app-tip-pay-theft-doordash-amazon-flex-instacart
======
tempsy
I'm confused why this has become a story again. Recode reported this back in
March and there was a bunch of controversy about it raised back then, with
Instacart reversing course and DoorDash doing nothing.

I think it speaks more to how quickly we get outraged and forget than anything
else.

~~~
lovehashbrowns
Because DoorDash still hasn't reversed their policy and because a lot of
people still don't know that DoorDash does this.

~~~
phil248
People also don't know that restaurants do this. People generally are not
aware of, and do not care about, the specifics of labor practices outside of
their own industry.

~~~
zzzeek
I think the thing that's making it look a lot worse for Doordash is their
hypocrisy in things like this: [https://blog.doordash.com/introducing-project-
dash-bbc61ac0c...](https://blog.doordash.com/introducing-project-dash-
bbc61ac0cb8c)

the critique goes :

1\. rip off workers 2\. workers are poor, cant afford food 3\. launch BS
"anti-hunger" initiatives which address about 1% as much hunger as they cause,
but make customers feel like they are doing a good thing using the service.

it's not unlike how big oil companies like BP run tons of advertisements how
they are so "invested" in renewable energies like solar, spending a tiny
fraction of the money they gain by profiting off of generation of greenhouse
gasses and also dumping millions of gallons into the gulf of mexico every now
and then.

------
flexer2
Amazon Flex does this as well. I signed up to do deliveries last year to see
how it worked, and on a couple occasions gamed it such that I was able to
deliver an order I placed to myself (which is really just ordering from a
nearby restaurant and hoping you get the offer). The advertised pay I would
get for the delivery before accepting it was $7-12 (the range is supposed to
account for tips, and across all deliveries, when everything settled it was
almost always the low end of that range). With Amazon Restaurants, you had to
tip when you ordered, and couldn't change afterwards, and my tip was $3. When
everything cleared, I got $7, and I knew $3 of that was my own tip to myself.
Had I tipped $0, I would still have gotten $7. I always felt it was a crummy
thing to do to people -- your tip was just making Amazon give the driver less
money. Not being able to change the tip also sucked, as I don't like tipping
when I haven't received anything yet. That's more of a "name your price"
service fee.

Amazon has dropped out of the restaurant game, but they still probably do this
for Prime Now and Whole Foods (package deliveries aren't eligible for tips).
The funny thing with restaurants was during peak times, when they didn't have
enough drivers, they'd send out guaranteed $22 offers to delivery maybe $20
worth of food, which I always pounced on as it was incredibly easy money. It's
no wonder they couldn't keep that business going.

Tips sometimes worked out well, though -- on some Prime Now routes where it
was maybe $20-30 guaranteed, I'd get over $60 after tips. So they weren't
always keeping everything to themselves. I could never figure out the rhyme or
reason behind any of it.

~~~
loco5niner
> Amazon Flex does this well.

I feel like you intended this to be "Amazon Flex does this AS well"

... which is the difference between saying "they ALSO do this" and "they do a
good job at this".

~~~
loco5niner
Odd that someone downvoted me AFTER the OP stated it was a typo and fixed it.

~~~
loco5niner
Also odd that someone has already downvoted this comment.

Attention downvoter: You should probably downvote my other comment here too:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20502359](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20502359)

~~~
dang
Would you please follow the site guidelines? They ask you not to go on about
downvotes. Yes, they're annoying, but everyone gets them, and it's not a good
reason to add noise to HN.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
bryanlarsen
Note that lots of restaurants do this too. Federal law lets an employer steal
the first $5.12 of tips and many states have similar laws.

From wikipedia:

"The United States of America federal government requires a wage of at least
$2.13 per hour be paid to employees that receive at least $30 per month in
tips.[4] If wages and tips do not equal the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per
hour during any week, the employer is required to increase cash wages to
compensate.[5]"

It's phrased to sound like a top-up but it's theft in my opinion.

~~~
mjevans
I agree.

I'd like two things:

1) Tips to actually be tips, and OPTIONAL.

2) Real wages that are static for the restaurant (a base wage, calculated to
properly compensate the employee without tips).

Please stop adding a hidden tax to items on menus.

~~~
csunbird
It works like what you mentioned in most of the world but for some reason, it
works differently in United States.

------
vorpalhex
DoorDash also has _terrible_ customer service which caused me to stop using
them long ago. This policy in particular should be illegal without disclaimer
(I'm intending to give money as a tip to my dasher, not fund DoorDash Inc) and
is atrocious business practice.

------
AndrewStephens
This is just what tips are.

People (in the US) are used to tipping in restaurants but many don't realize
that in almost every case the restaurant is using those tips to top up the
wages they should be paying the servers anyway.

So the restaurant can pay the server much less than the minimum wage - your
tips just make up the difference until the server makes some minimum. What
DoorDash is doing here isn't any different except that servers usually manage
to make more in tips.

In conclusion, tipping culture sucks and the sooner employees start paying
decent base wages the better.

------
pg_bot
If you're going to tip, do it in cash and hand the money directly to the
person that you're tipping. It is a fairly safe assumption that a third party
collecting tips is going to pull some nonsense on that worker.

~~~
cpeterso
Tipping $0 on the site with the intention of handing cash to the driver means
the delivery payout (which includes the site tip) displayed to drivers will be
lower. Drivers are more likely take your delivery job if it has a higher
payout. I don't know if the system breaks out the site tip in the delivery
payout. If it did, people could enter a magic number to signal to drivers that
they intend to tip in cash on delivery.

~~~
thatswrong0
I’ve been setting my tip in app to be the number I intend to tip in cash and
then I just 0 the tip out afterwards. Don’t use apps that don’t allow me to
change the tip after the fact (but hopefully drivers don’t get dinged for that
change somehow)

~~~
rhizome
Do these apps have freeform text boxes, "special instructions" or whatever?
Could put a note in there, or make it your middle name displayed with the
order, "Bob ITipInCash Smith"

------
galkk
Just another nail in what should be coffin of the general "tipping" culture.
If I enjoy the food, I should be able to tip the cook, why I need to tip
someone who's job is to drive the order to me?

~~~
overcast
Servers generally tip out a percentage to the guys behind closed doors. That
means cooks, dishwashers, etc.

------
zelon88
This is why, instead of essentially promoting the next wave of "too-big-to-
fail" monopolies, we should be trying to franchise things like this.

I had the idea a while back when someone I knew was getting the run around by
Uber.

If someone developed a platform that catered to _franchisees_ instead of end-
users (and contractors) it would be easier for everyone. Easier to price the
service, easier to pay the workers, easier to negotiate, easier to run the
business in a smaller scale.

So instead of Uber or DoorDash having 2,000,000 contractors, they have 10,000
franchises with each one maintaining it's own affairs. Everybody wins!

~~~
leetcrew
why would that make anything better? sounds like you would just add an
additional rung of people who don't actually drive anywhere but still need to
be paid.

~~~
zelon88
I think the savings from reduced liability and simplified corporate structure
would offset the costs. Let's face it, Uber doesn't make money as it is and
neither do Uber drivers once you factor in all the expenses.

But if you can shift the liability for driver satisfaction and compensation
off of Uber and onto it's franchises suddenly Uber isn't making 10,000,000
transactions per day. They're only making 10,000 transactions per month.
That's money making interest for Uber instead of drivers. Also, Uber no longer
makes money from rides. They make money by selling franchise rights and access
to the platform for franchisers. The franchise is responsible for turning a
profit from rides, and also for ensuring their employees are compensated.

There would also be an increase in efficiency. Currently my friend starts off
30m south of Boston for Uber, but her rides typically take her north of Boston
within a few hours. Uber doesn't care how far out of her way she's going. When
she inevitably shuts off her app she must then drive 2 hours to get home. If
each franchise had it's own "turf" this could be organized and reduced. The
result is less wasted fuel/time for the drivers and a smoother ride because
drivers stay in areas they're comfortable and familiar with.

~~~
braindouche
So basically, after "disrupting" cab companies, Uber would be transitioning
into a software vendor for cab companies.

~~~
zelon88
I guess so. It would throw both business models a lifeline and help to
stabilize the supply/demand problem ( _right before automation creates a whole
new supply /demand problem_).

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blakesterz
ah, I thought this was for sure a repeat, but apparently only some places
changed when this first broke earlier in the year...

"Following outcry, Instacart scrapped the policy and promised to retroactively
compensate workers. But DoorDash and Amazon Flex didn’t budge. They still use
tips to make up base pay on some of their deliveries. Even more annoyingly, it
can be difficult for workers to know when this is even happening because of a
lack of transparency in how they’re paid (DoorDash, though, recently rolled
out changes to make the source of earnings clearer)."

------
w3rhn2j34oh5o
they say 'tip in cash', but I never have the physical cash to tip. This always
brings me anxiety when I dont have the physical small bills to provide. I
would ensure I use a platform (as mentioned in the article, like grubhub or
seamless) that doesn't garnish the electronic tips for pay.

~~~
inetsee
It's gotten to the point where I almost always use a card to pay for things,
but I also have some cash with me most of the time (on the order of $50,
including $5s and $1s) just for occasions like this.

------
VectorLock
I went to the bank and got an envelope of $5ers that I keep around just for
delivery drivers now.

I'd love to see how much DoorDash's "tip" revenue has declined since this
seems to now be much more widely known.

------
csunbird
Always pay the tip in cash to avoid this kind of tactics from companies.

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teddyc
Restaurants do this. They are required to pay minimum wage if the $2.15/hr +
tips doesn't average out to be at least minimum wage. As a restaurant owner,
you can add lots of hours at $2.15/hr before you have to pay anything extra
out of pocket.

That's how they are able to force waitstaff / bartenders to do setup / cleanup
for $2.15/hr.

------
NikolaeVarius
I think this should just be consolidated into the original article discussed
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20490687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20490687).
The verge really isn't adding much

~~~
mcphage
The thread you're linking to only has 2 comments.

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bcheung
The website lets you pay $0 for tip so you can tip in cash. I haven't found a
way to set the tip in the app. Unfortunately, the website is much less
reliable than the app and frequently has issues.

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latortuga
As a relatively frequent customer of DoorDash, I have a pet theory working. I
have tried this "pick $0, tip in cash" approach and it works fine for the
driver - they get the money, I get the satisfaction of knowing they got the
whole tip, and I get to extract the maximum value from all the VC money
subsidizing these delivery companies.

But I have also seen that I am now getting deliveries where I am 3rd or 4th
stop and by the time the food arrives, it is cold. My conspiracy theory is
that doordash is trying to drive me away from their platform because of my $0
tips. Anyone else notice this when tipping $0?

~~~
evilolive
both good reasons for your future boycott of door dash! Are there other food
delivery services who have clearly explained fee structures?

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oceanghost
I applaud this article for calling this what it is... Theft.

------
stillbourne
Then don't tip.

