Mistakes do happen, and a lot, especially in the food delivery industry. So what happens if you’re a third party to this mistake – in this case, got delivered food you didn’t order?
This article should provide the needed steps to take.
Steps to take when Doordash delivered food I didn’t order
Eat, dispose, or get into a lost-and-find service – there are just a number of things you can do when you find yourself in this situation.
But what is this most advisable?
Well, it’s not just one – there are 3 basic steps we’ve come up with that work for us.
Let’s take a look at them.
Check the Label
For every order delivered on Doordash, they either come with a receipt or label. This should contain basic information about the recipient, maybe a name or phone number.
However, in most cases, it’s going to be a name and almost never a phone number.
Either way, you could try double-checking if the name corresponds with a neighbor you have. And If there’s a number (but most likely not) – call them.
Now what if you can’t find any label?
If you live in a small neighborhood or a rented apartment with few houses or neighbors, it might not be bad if you walk by and ask them.
This is one of the main reasons people’s delivery orders are not being delivered accurately is usually a result of delivery to a neighbor’s address which may seem alike.
Who knows? Maybe you’re the neighbor in this case.
But if not, proceed to the next step.
Wait for 1 hour
If you can’t find the label or the rightful owner and there are no green lights so far indicating that someone is coming to get the order, it’s best you wait.
And at Exiledriver, we recommend waiting for atleast 1 hour.
This is because, if the mistake is from the driver, he could likely come back to get the food if he discovers it earlier. However, this shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes.
If he doesn’t return back within 30 minutes, he’s not coming back anymore.
This is because within an extra 30 minutes, he should be long gone, delivering the next order he may have, and would likely not go back to a previous order.
Hence, the ideal wait time we recommend is 1-hour minimum.
Dispose or Eat the Food
The idea of waiting for 1 hour is to see whether anybody (most likely the driver) would come for the order. If however, they don’t come, there are two options you could take next:
- Eat the food
- Dispose
Most people would prefer to dispose it, if they’re not comfortable eating it or if the food is not to their taste. Not a bad idea, but if you wouldn’t want to waste the food, you could safely eat it as well.
But firstly, ensure that the packaging is secure and the food has not been tampered with. This would usually be easy to tell as most food packaging from delivery services come sealed or closed in a way that would show signs of tampering, if at all tampered.
If the packaging looks good, and the food is still hot or at least at a safe temperature, you should be fine to eat it.
Why no need to contact Doordash and the restaurant
In a situation like this, most people would recommend contacting Doordash or the restaurant (if the restaurant label is shown). However, you’re unlikely to get any solution from these options.
To begin with, there’s no need to contact the restaurant because they’d most likely not have any information about the customer.
Of course, the deal is between the customer and the Doordash, not the restaurant. So the restaurant has no solution to profer.
And now for Doordash…you can’t actually contact them for an order that doesn’t belong to you unless you’re the customer.
Even if you manage to contact them, which would cost you a good amount of time, they are unlikely to send another driver to come to pick up the food or profer any good solution.
Furthermore, if a delivery is not successfully given to a customer or a mistake like this happens, the customer would be refunded duly, depending on whose fault the mistake is.
The driver won’t also have any problem as well – he’d be paid fair and square. The problem, however, is the fact that he could get a contract violation depending on the scenario.
Now, this doesn’t mean he’s losing his job. But if he keeps getting multiple of contract violations in a short period of time, then he could get his account deactivated.
Final thoughts
Delivery mistakes are more common than you can think. Whether it happens to you firsthand or you’re a third party to one like this, it’s important you take the right steps.
We hope this article helps!
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