What to Do When DoorDash Customer Says You Did Not Deliver

Imagine driving, and spending gas to a restaurant, picking up the food, and having it delivered to a customer in hand, all to hear eventually from the app that you never delivered.

Unbearable pain.

Thankfully, it’s quite rare.

But these things do happen.

As a driver, If you want to tackle these customers and avoid getting deactivated, here’s a comprehensive article…

Is This Actually Possible for Customers to Do?

Technically, it’s very possible and happens every once in a while.

For instance, the story that trended in 2022…

This woman had received her order and told DoorDash she didn’t in the bid to get refunded.

The young man got deactivated but thankfully, luck was on his side after his video trended and DoorDash retook their action while the woman got fired.

Now why do these happen?

This is because the stage of delivery confirmation is and should be done by a customer.

DoorDash is more likely to trust a review from a customer who’s expecting a delivery rather than a driver.

Again, the whole business is done to satisfy the customers, so why not?

But then there’s a twist.

While a customer could technically lie about a delivery, what happens after would depend on a driver’s response to the situation.

If a driver ignores the claim, the customer could get away with it.

If he doesn’t, he can revert things.

This is because, usually, DoorDash automatically grants requests for complaints or refunds without proper investigation, especially to loyal customers.

For instance, if a customer lies about a delivery, Doordash takes their word instantly without even an investigation, not until their (DoorDash’s) actions are questioned.

Seen that myself severally. This same applies to typical refunds.

Now, as a driver, this is where you’re expected to come in to counter a false claim against you, prompting the company to do further investigations with the data on their end which could give them a clue as to who the lying party is.

Things like the GPS tracking history for the delivery, and the driver delivery history, are a few things to go through.

Because as we said earlier, initially DoorDash may likely not make a proper investigation before taking the customer’s word for it.

So if you don’t act, you bear the consequences.

For drivers in this shoe, there are a couple of steps to take which we go through below…

What to Do When DoorDash Customer Says You Did Not Deliver

The first thing you want to do is to contact support.

Yeah, simple as ABC, but yeah, that’s what you want to do at the moment.

Contact Support as fast as possible.

But here’s the way to go…

Firstly, you need to know that in a situation of “order never arriving” DoorDash will normally give you a contract violation (a sort of warning) rather than a strict deactivation.

You can only get deactivated after getting a series of contract violations. Here, anything above 2 can be risky.

Now the moment you get an “order never arrived” contract violation in this vein, you want to appeal right away.

At the same time, you could also try contacting support.

Either way, there are two key points to maintain in your communication with DoorDash.

1. Your driver delivery history

Are you a driver with over a thousand deliveries, good history, fewer contract violations, good ratings, and have been in the space for a long time?

It’s way easier for you.

On your appeal, you want to be like…

I’ve done thousands of deliveries with zero issues. Why would I just want to randomly claim I delivered when I didn’t, while being very coversant with the policies of the company. Like, I’ve been on DoorDash for ever. If you care, here are the pictures I took and you could also check your GPS data on my location that day.”

Don’t know if was a bit aggressive above, but I think that’s the way to go

You don’t want to go “all pity” and seem like you’re not confident about your position or action.

But that aside…

Our point is to use your driver history as a leverage

2. The picture of the delivery

This is the reason you should always take photos of every delivery.

In fact, I’d be very shocked to find out that there are drivers who don’t take pictures of orders at the drop-off location.

You do this even when you have a “Hand it to me” delivery to deliver.

I know a couple of people who have special head cameras on, the moment they’re about to drop off a delivery.

Hard work, but if it can help you stop being a victim of lying deliveries, why not?

The whole thing is becoming prevalent after all.

Now what if you don’t have a picture of the delivery?

Well, you could still try making the appeal without the pictures.

Here’s someone that did that…

But then, this is only a last-resort thingy – a situation when you have no evidence to prove your actual delivery status that day.

It works, but you’ll be lucky.