On: A pizzeria owner made money buying his own $24 pizzas from DoorDash for $16 (2020)

[MichaelCollins]

I'm not a lawyer, I can read the TOS but I'm not qualified to understand it. TOSes are a farce but that doesn't mean they can't be enforced.

EDIT: But I'll humor the premise, here are some lines from the customer TOS:

> (e) You will not use the Services to cause nuisance, annoyance or inconvenience.

> (q) You will not try to harm other Users, DoorDash, or the Services in any way whatsoever.

> (t) You will not abuse our promotional or credit code system, including by redeeming multiple coupons at once or by opening multiple accounts to benefit from offers available only to first-time users.

> You agree that promotional offers: (i) may only be used by the intended audience, for the intended purpose, and in a lawful manner;

What are the actual legal implications of these lines? I have no clue. Could they be construed by lawyers to forbid this scheme? I don't know.

[Retric → MichaelCollins]

It would be really interesting for DoorDash to argue in court that ordering food from them and then paying for it somehow harms them.

But in case you really can’t tell, no the terms don’t apply here. Lawsuits generally assume people have put on their big boy pants, if sell a painting for 10$ that ends up being worth millions that’s on you. You decided 10$ was a reasonable price at the time of sale and you don’t get to say but your honor I am an idiot.

[MichaelCollins → Retric]

> "no the terms don’t apply here"

Is that your legal opinion as a lawyer?

It says that customers agree to only use promotional discounts "for the intended purpose"; what does that mean and how can you be sure a business owner using promotional discounts to profit from arbitrage is the "intended purpose" of the promotional discount?

[blendergeek → MichaelCollins]

This actually wasn't listed as a "promotional discount". Doordash just listed the pizza as cheap. And the pizza man decided to enjoy the cheap pizza.

[Retric → MichaelCollins]

This stuff isn't complicated, “Intended purpose” is the obvious use aka making orders.

Finding the cheapest order possible and making repeated orders to DOS the company locally wouldn’t be.

[chrisseaton → Retric]

Seems like a deliberate nuisance?

[Retric → chrisseaton]

He was making individual orders of a large but not extreme size every few days. That's hardly a nuisance.

[chrisseaton → Retric]

Seems like a meaningless distinction? The owner knows he’s being an ass - he wrote a whole article about it.

[Retric → chrisseaton]

Let’s assume a random person across the street happened to make identical orders exactly when he did through random chance.

Could Door Dash argue that person was being a nuisance?

[chrisseaton → Retric]

Law looks at intent.

[Retric → chrisseaton]

Not for determining if something is a nuisance.

It's like harm, you are either inconvenienced or you arn’t.