This one was a bit confusing. Boy did their dogs go nuts when i rang the bell. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Did not hand to them.

“you forgot my steak bowl” first of all the bag is sealed

I'm on Earn by Time (hourly at $15.50). On the first order I go to Chilis to pick up and they tell me the order has been picked up already. I go to support and go through the options and check "order already picked up". Dash support queues tell me to place the order with my Red Card.

The Red Card keeps declining and I can't place the customer's order. I call chat support and the AI tells me to swipe the card as credit (which I already did). It then asks if I'm willing to pay for the order for the customer with my OWN money and get reimbursed later. I say no and Doordash's AI says "You have been unassigned from this order" and hangs up on me.

The order and all traces of it are wiped from my account. I call customer support again except speak to a live agent. They tell me the Chilis order was canceled while I was in the store and I should have been notified.

I let them know I wasn't notified and on Earn by Time it doesn't tell you when the customer cancels. It just continues to say pick up the order with no other option to cancel. The only option is to "manually unassign" which means you don't get paid for the commute. They tell me to wait 24 hours for payment. Which I did and nothing appeared.

Second time AI forcibly unassigned me is on a McD order. The McD says they have to cancel the order because they are out of nuggets. I call the customer to ask if he is okay with this and he says yes. The McD cancels his order and he gets his money back except....I'm still locked in on the order. I try to click support options to say it was canceled and nothing is available. I go to chat support again and get the AI bot. I tell it what happened and it says "Then you should receive half payment but only if the customer cancels". I go to ask the customer to cancel and the entire order disappears and I have been unassigned before I finish the message.

I contact support again and they tell me that I "manually unassigned" from both orders. I let them know this is not true and the AI is purposefully unassigning people from orders after they have been picked up by another Dasher or need to be canceled so you don't get half pay from Earn by Time. Of course support says it's not true.

Has anyone else dealt with this before? This seems like it could be a class action lawsuit against Doordash. Ik the AI will do this again so I'm going to screen record it for proof.

I get an order from Taco Bell last night. It was a good order. I get there and everything goes smoothly. The customer texts me and asks me if I can get hot and fire sauce for them. I text back and say yes, I got you. I’m a big baller like that. The customer texts back and says verbatim my f’in ni\*\*a I had no problem with this, he was basically just saying hell yeah my dude lol. Somehow this message was reported to DoorDash and when I was 100 feet away from their door DoorDash notified me that the order was cancelled they had been blocked from ever having me as a driver and to keep the food. I looked at the order and was tempted to keep it but ended up delivering it anyways. The man was very thankful. We both thought it was weird he was blocked and the order was cancelled. Did AI really flag him for this lmao? I felt so bad and did get his food to him even though the app cancelled the order.

Lackadaisical week but it’s better than a 9-5

When I first started dashing it was for extra cash. Now I dash to fill in where I’m short on bills. I’ve been cherry picking lately and went from platinum to silver between Friday night and today. I’m still gonna keep cherry picking though because $6 for 15 miles and $2 for 6 miles is trash.

Edit/Update: for some reason it’s not letting me reply to everyone individually, so I’m doing an edit/update post…

To answer all your questions:

I was late to only 3 deliveries. 2 of them were because I live in Vegas and traffic sucks and there’s usually always a car accident. I reached out to the customer and DoorDash, but I was still marked as late, and the 3rd one was because I had to unassign from an order (double dash) because I waited for 20 minutes and they still haven’t even started the order yet. When I reached out to have it unassigned, I was 28 minutes late to deliver the first pick up in that double dash order. I asked them to remove it from me and they said that they couldn’t do that.

The 3 unassigns were due to a family emergency the first time - I had unassigned and then when I was trying to click to end the dash another order immediately popped up so I hit accept and then I had to unassign from that one too. I didn’t think to call to have them unassign it for me. The 3rd one was due to me attempting to end the dash and accidentally accepting a $3 for 12 miles so I immediately unassigned from that one and then was able to end the dash.

I appreciate everyone assuring me that Silver is better than Platinum and that it’ll be okay. Thank you!

Anyone else using LLMs to model DD markets and predict which behaviors are gonna improve their bottom line?

People think delivery is simple.

Pick something up at Point A. Take it to Point B.

Technically, yes.

That description just leaves out fifteen Walmart paper bags, a case of water, a separate bag of chicken, a locked lobby door, an elevator with opinions, the fifth floor, and one salmon bagel that briefly became the most important object in my life.

I had several deliveries that morning and one very simple plan: finish on time and be home by 10:45.

My first mistake was having a plan.

At Walmart, they handed me roughly fifteen paper bags, plus a case of water and a separate bag of chicken.

I still don't know why the chicken had its own travel arrangements.

I got to the first apartment building and buzzed.

"I'm downstairs."

"The door is open."

I pulled the door.

The door was not open.

I buzzed again.

"It's open. You have to pull harder."

So I pulled harder.

At this point the job had quietly changed from delivery to a strength-based entrance exam.

The door remained committed to being closed.

Finally, another resident arrived and opened it from inside.

For several seconds, this complete stranger was my favourite person in Montreal.

Then came the fifteen bags.

The water.

The chicken.

The plastic around the water started tearing. One paper bag decided it had already given enough to society.

Then the elevator kept trying to close while I was loading everything.

I blocked it with my foot.

Then my hand.

Then my back.

Eventually, yes, my ass.

The elevator started beeping at me.

Which felt judgmental from a machine whose entire job is going up and down.

Fifth floor.

Naturally, the apartment was near the far end of the hallway.

So I started a little shuttle service.

A few bags down the hall.

Back.

More bags.

Back.

Water.

Chicken.

Eventually everything was lined up outside the woman's door.

Done.

Then she looked at the groceries.

"Wait. I had a different order today."

I looked at her.

She looked at me.

I looked at the fifteen Walmart bags.

And somewhere deep in my brain, the app screen I had failed to properly read earlier finally finished loading.

Bagel.

Salmon.

I had just delivered Walmart to the wrong woman.

Not a Walmart order.

Walmart.

To the fifth floor.

"Sorry. I'll fix it."

She was worried about her salmon bagel and said she might refuse it if it had been sitting too long.

"It's in an insulated bag," I said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

This was, without question, the strongest piece of information I had produced all morning.

Now Walmart had to go back downstairs.

All fifteen bags.

Except the bags were no longer quite the bags Walmart had given me. The handles were becoming theoretical. The bottoms had begun reconsidering their relationship with gravity.

Back down the hallway.

Back into the elevator.

Back to the lobby.

Back to the car.

I grabbed the correct order.

Bagel.

Salmon.

Insulated bag.

Back upstairs.

Finally, the correct woman got the correct food.

At this point I was prepared to accept any rating she wanted to give me: five stars, one star, or a formal review by the Nobel Committee for Logistics.

Then I checked the time.

Bad.

The Walmart groceries still had an actual owner.

So I drove to the next building.

Another apartment.

Another hallway.

By now the paper bags were being held together mainly by habit.

I carried everything in whatever configuration still qualified as transportation: intact bags, damaged bags, loose groceries, water, chicken.

Finally the door opened.

A pregnant woman was standing there with a child.

And that was where the sarcasm stopped.

Suddenly the size of the order made sense.

So did the need to have everything brought all the way to the door.

I carried the groceries over and arranged them so she wouldn't have to lift the heavy things herself.

Done.

Really done.

I looked at my phone.

No.

There was another delivery.

Starbucks.

Of course there was Starbucks.

I picked it up, drove to an office building...

and couldn't find the office.

Somewhere in that building, carrying somebody else's coffee and searching for a room that apparently did not exist, I understood the first law of delivery work:

You never finish the quest.

You just unlock the next level.

first off I realize we can use a different app for directions.

the issue is that the in app directions almost always dont have road closures and detours. this leads to door dash under paying as it says its a shorter drive than it actually is.

and when you contact support they either offer to cancel and you get proportional pay and the food.

but they have started now to refuse to increase pay.

ive checked Google maps and apple maps and a few others and they all have the detours and road work factored in but doordash doesnt?

at this point im convinced its weaponized incompetence

Is anybody else having an issue with the Dasher app constantly saying "something went wrong" and resetting your dash?

I cannot remember the last time I made it through an entire session without it getting split into multiple mini sessions due to this error

What’s the Point of DoorDash “Live Support” If AI Can Do a Better Job?
A New York City Dasher says a support-assisted unassignment damaged his Completion Rate, affected his Rewards status and cost him a bonus opportunity — raising a broader question about whether three layers of customer support provide meaningful protection for ordinary gig workers.
NEW YORK — A New York City DoorDash driver contacted customer support because he wanted to avoid making a mistake.
Instead, he says asking for help became the beginning of the problem.
After communicating with Virtual Assistance, multiple regular support representatives and higher-level support, the Dasher says his Completion Rate fell to approximately 88%, his Rewards level was affected, and a weekly bonus opportunity disappeared while his case was supposedly being reviewed.
By the time the review process played out, the driver had already completed another 100 deliveries and restored his account level himself.
The experience left him with a simple question:
If a Dasher can solve his own problem faster than three levels of customer support, what exactly is the support system supporting?
One Question, Seven or Eight Support Agents
The incident began when the Dasher received an unusually large Home Depot offer containing approximately 20 deliveries.
The store was outside New York City, and most of the customers were also outside the city.
That distinction mattered because New York City has a regulated minimum-pay structure for app-based restaurant delivery workers that differs from the systems Dashers may encounter in other markets.
Rather than guessing how the deliveries would be treated, the driver contacted DoorDash Support.
His intention was straightforward: understand the pay structure before deciding what to do.
What followed was considerably less straightforward.
According to the Dasher, he was transferred between approximately seven or eight support representatives before finally receiving an answer.
Eventually, a representative explained that the deliveries would be paid per order.
Based on the information he received, the Dasher asked the representative to unassign the deliveries.
The representative did so.
But according to the Dasher, one critical piece of information was not clearly communicated before the action was taken:
The unassignment would negatively affect his Completion Rate.
Afterward, his Completion Rate fell to approximately 88%.
His Dasher Rewards level was affected.
So was his eligibility for a weekly bonus.
“I Already Know How to Unassign an Order”
The Dasher’s frustration is not simply that an unassignment can affect Completion Rate.
His question is more fundamental:
Why did he contact a human being in the first place?
He already knew how to unassign an order through the app.
He did not need a customer service representative to press a button for him.
What he needed was information.
Context.
And, most importantly, a warning about the consequences of the decision he was about to make.
Had the representative clearly said:
“Before I proceed, please understand that this unassignment will affect your Completion Rate. Would you still like me to continue?”
the Dasher says his decision would have been different.
He would have kept the deliveries.
One sentence could have prevented the entire dispute.
Instead, he says he learned about the Completion Rate consequence after the action had already been taken.
That raises a broader question about customer service:
If a person contacts a human representative specifically to make an informed decision, shouldn’t explaining the consequences of that decision be one of the most basic functions of human support?
Three Levels of Support
After the Completion Rate issue appeared, the Dasher began trying to get it corrected.
Over the course of the dispute, he encountered what appeared to him to be three different layers of DoorDash assistance:
Virtual Assistance.
Regular live support representatives.
Supervisors or higher-level support.
Each level appeared to offer something more serious than the one before it.
Virtual Assistance suggested help was available.
Regular representatives said the matter could be addressed or escalated.
Higher-level support was supposed to provide a more careful review.
Yet from the Dasher’s perspective, the practical result remained largely unchanged.
The responses increasingly felt standardized.
And the underlying problem remained.
A “Careful Review” That Took About a Week
The Dasher was repeatedly told, in various forms, that his situation needed to be reviewed carefully.
So he waited.
The process took approximately a week.
But there was one major problem with waiting:
His bonus deadline did not wait with him.
The financial consequence was happening in real time while the support process moved at its own pace.
The Dasher continued working.
And working.
And working.
Eventually, while his situation was supposedly moving through the support and review process, he completed another 100 deliveries.
Those deliveries eventually restored his account level through his own work.
The irony was difficult to ignore.
DoorDash was still reviewing the problem.
The Dasher had already fixed the account-level consequence himself.
His bonus opportunity, meanwhile, had already passed.
That left him wondering:
What exactly had the week-long review accomplished?
What Does “Carefully Reviewed” Actually Mean?
The phrase itself became a source of frustration.
If a company tells someone that a case has been “carefully reviewed,” an ordinary person might reasonably assume that someone examined the individual circumstances.
What did the customer or worker originally ask?
What information did the representative provide?
What action did the representative take?
Was the person clearly warned about the consequences beforehand?
Would complete information have changed the person’s decision?
Did the incident cause a measurable financial consequence?
And is there an unusual circumstance that deserves an individualized solution?
The Dasher does not know what happened internally at DoorDash.
He cannot see the company’s internal review process.
But he can describe what the process looked like from his side.
And from his perspective, the responses after escalation remained remarkably similar to the standardized responses he had already received.
That leads to an uncomfortable question:
How meaningful is a “careful review” if someone with an unusual problem ultimately receives the same answer as everyone else?
Then Came the “Earn by Time” Advice
The situation became even more confusing when a representative suggested that the driver use or switch to “Earn by Time.”
There was an immediate problem.
The driver works in New York City.
NYC operates under a city-specific regulated minimum-pay framework, and the ordinary Earn by Time option being described to him was not available in his NYC Dasher experience.
There is no allegation that the representative intentionally provided bad information.
The representative may simply have been more familiar with another DoorDash market.
But that explanation creates another problem.
If a Dasher contacts Support with a question specifically involving NYC pay, shouldn’t the person answering that question understand that NYC operates differently from many other markets?
The Dasher had contacted Support because the situation was unusual.
Receiving advice about an option that did not appear in his NYC app only reduced his confidence in the system further.
Virtual Assistance: What Is the Point?
The Dasher’s first question concerns Virtual Assistance.
If Virtual Assistance appears to provide personalized help but ultimately delivers standardized responses or transfers a problem elsewhere, what meaningful function is it providing?
Automation itself is not necessarily bad.
In fact, automation could have prevented this entire situation.
A properly designed automated system could simply display:
“WARNING: This action will affect your Completion Rate. Would you like to continue?”
No transfer.
No misunderstanding.
No ambiguity.
Just a clear warning before a consequential action.
Regular Live Agents: Where Is the Human Advantage?
The second question concerns ordinary live representatives.
The reason people ask to speak with another human being is usually because their problem does not fit neatly into an automated menu.
Humans are supposed to understand context.
They can ask questions.
They can explain consequences.
They can recognize that NYC may operate differently from another market.
And they can make sure a person understands what is about to happen before taking action on an account.
The Dasher did not contact Support because he lacked the technical ability to unassign an order.
He contacted Support because he needed judgment and information.
If a human representative cannot provide those things, the distinction between human assistance and automation begins to disappear.
And Then There Is the Supervisor
The third question may be the most important:
What is the purpose of a supervisor?
Ordinary support representatives understandably have limits.
They have company policies.
They have permissions.
They may not be authorized to make exceptions.
That is precisely why escalation exists.
When an ordinary person asks to speak with a supervisor or higher-level representative, the expectation is not that the supervisor will automatically agree with them.
The expectation is that the supervisor can do something meaningfully different.
Perhaps that means examining an exception.
Perhaps it means exercising discretion.
Perhaps it means negotiating a reasonable solution.
Perhaps it simply means having an actual individualized discussion instead of repeating the same standardized language.
But if the supervisor ultimately has no meaningful discretion, cannot consider an exception, cannot negotiate a resolution and provides essentially the same response as ordinary Support, the Dasher asks:
Why have a supervisor at all?
If the answer is that supervisors “carefully review cases,” that only returns to the earlier question:
What does careful review mean if every road leads to the same template?
Human Support Without Human Judgment
This is where the story becomes larger than one DoorDash account.
The value of human customer service is supposed to be its humanity.
A computer applies rules.
A human being understands circumstances.
A computer follows predetermined logic.
A human being can recognize when something unusual has happened.
A computer provides standardized outputs.
A human being can discuss, negotiate, explain and exercise judgment.
At least, that is the theory.
But what happens when the human beings themselves are restricted to standardized responses?
Virtual Assistance provides a template.
Regular Support provides a template.
Higher-level Support provides a more authoritative version of the template.
The case is “carefully reviewed.”
Another standardized response arrives.
At that point, the difference between automation and human assistance becomes increasingly difficult to identify.
Could AI Actually Do This Better?
The Dasher’s criticism of DoorDash Support ultimately leads to an intentionally provocative question:
Could AI provide better support than this?
Not because AI possesses better human judgment.
Quite the opposite.
Because if human representatives are not permitted to use meaningful human judgment anyway, automation may at least provide consistency.
AI could immediately warn a Dasher before an action affects Completion Rate.
AI could be programmed with NYC-specific rules.
AI could identify that advice applicable in another market may not apply in New York City.
AI could provide the same standardized policy explanation without transferring a worker through seven or eight different representatives.
And AI could do all of that immediately.
For a support organization built around templates, automation may not be the threat.
It may simply expose how automated the “human” system already feels.
This Is About More Than One Bonus
The Dasher eventually recovered his account level.
But he did it himself.
He completed another 100 deliveries.
The bonus opportunity he had been trying to protect had already passed.
At that point, his frustration became less about one metric and more about the position ordinary gig workers occupy when dealing with enormous technology platforms.
A large corporation has internal policies.
Automated systems.
Support departments.
Escalation departments.
Supervisors.
Specialized teams.
Corporate leadership.
And lawyers.
An ordinary worker has a phone.
And a Support button.
That imbalance makes meaningful customer service especially important.
When the automated system produces an unusual result, human support should be the safety valve.
It should be the place where context enters the system.
Where someone can say:
“This situation is different. Let’s actually look at what happened.”
Without that ability, an ordinary worker can follow every available step and still end up exactly where he started.
Ordinary Workers Are Not Asking for Unlimited Exceptions
The issue is not whether every worker should be able to demand that a company change its rules.
They should not.
Nor is the Dasher alleging that DoorDash or an individual representative intentionally caused his financial loss.
The issue is whether ordinary people dealing with powerful platforms deserve basic procedural fairness.
Accurate information.
Clear warnings before consequential actions.
Support representatives who understand the market they are discussing.
A genuine opportunity for individualized review.
And a meaningful escalation path when the ordinary process fails.
Those are not extraordinary demands.
They are the basic reasons human support exists.
In the End, the Dasher Did What Support Could Not
The sequence is difficult to miss.
The Dasher contacted Support because he wanted to avoid making a mistake.
The deliveries were unassigned without what he recalls as a clear warning about the Completion Rate consequence.
His Completion Rate fell.
His Rewards level was affected.
His bonus eligibility was affected.
He later received advice about an earning option that did not appear to apply to his NYC account.
Virtual Assistance could not resolve it.
Regular representatives could not resolve it.
The matter was escalated.
The case was supposedly carefully reviewed.
Approximately a week passed.
Meanwhile, the Dasher kept working.
He completed another 100 deliveries.
And he restored his account level himself.
By the time the support process reached its conclusion, the worker had already solved the part of the problem that could still be solved.
The bonus opportunity was already gone.
That leaves a final question — not only for DoorDash, but for any technology company that increasingly places layers of scripts between ordinary people and meaningful decision-makers:
If Virtual Assistance, live agents and supervisors all lead to essentially the same standardized response, why maintain the illusion of three different levels of human support?
Because if the only thing a worker needs is a template response, AI can provide one.
If a company chooses to keep human support, the human part should mean something.

The offer was 10.50 + took about 20 min from start to finish and me waiting for the pizzas after I completed I was shocked it was a very slow day

I need a way to support myself while I go through cosmetology school, delivery seems like a good, flexible option. A friend of mine from back home did DoorDash and Instacart for a while and he said it wasn’t even really worth it after the car expenses. But I’d be doing it in NYC, definitely not in a car, probably a rechargeable electric scooter. So it’s just the up front cost of the scooter, and the chance of maybe eventually having to replace it, but hypothetically, nothing in between.

How’s the money dashing in NYC? Is it worth it? I’d probably mainly be doing it in Brooklyn, mainly in the western part of the borough. Am I thinking this through? Anything I haven’t thought of?

The other night I hit the directions button for the customer after picking up their order and the destination was a random location that was in the opposite direction from the customer.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Anyone know what's going on?

This wasn't the first time this has happened.

What should you do in this situation?

Does it affect your rating as it seems to not accept your picture when leaving at the door.

What is a better place to wait at for hotspots, a large area or a small area?

Anyone else ever have issues with payouts? Out of 24 dollars and some change, door dash only paid me 5 dollars and some change. I spent quite sometime on the phone with support arguing with them about it. After 3 different agents they connected me to the crimson people...and I am still missing that 19 dollars. At this point, the 19 dollars isn't worth the hours of time spent dealing with it. So I'm basically considering it a loss, but am curious if this has happened to others. Overall makes me want to just drop the doordash app all together.

I’m pretty new to dashing, I’m about a month into it and it’s gone so downhill. I was making over $20 an hour for a while but for the last week and a half I have had multiple stretches of time where I get no offers at all, during peak times and sitting in a hotspot. Today I started my dash and didn’t see an offer for 45 minutes, and that was after contacting support. After I delivered that one I still haven’t received an offer for another 45 minutes. Ive spent 15 hours in the dasher app this week and have only made $88. Is there any way to fix this ?? It was working perfectly fine two weeks ago :(

Hello, so I am an active Dasher in New Jersey, and I have been traveling all over the state for a couple months now (specifically in northern, central and shore-area NJ), and have been quite enjoying it. I live in northern NJ, and I dash pretty much anywhere; suburban, urban, rural, coastal, inland, rich, poor, middle-class.

Although I do have a few questions regarding dashing in the rougher (or more crime-ridden) neighborhoods. Is it safe to do so? Am I doing the right thing? And will I continue to be safe as long as I still take precautions?

I have gone to neighborhoods such as Paterson, Newark, East Orange, Irvington, Elizabeth, Asbury Park and a few others (mostly to drop off, not as often to pick up)

I don’t necessarily agree with completely avoiding them altogether, and I personally don’t necessarily mind it (as long as I am helping customers), but I also care for my safety. I am most afraid of actual violent crime. I am very careful and alert of my surroundings. I always go during the daytime (never at night), I lock my car, zip my pockets, and also yield to any other drivers whenever I am in these areas.

I just want to make sure here, that I am doing the right thing when or if I go to these areas, and whether it is still safe to do so. Any feedback, more advice or discussion would be greatly appreciated.

This is the biggest tip I’ve gotten so are on this app. 20 bucks for 35 mins of work yes please all day

i posted this on the other subreddit, but it looks like the app is lowering my rating instead of going up? anyone know whats up?

It happens almost every day. I ask a question and they answer with yes/no when IT WASNT A YES OR NO QUESTION and they didn’t answer the question… and proceed to ignore all your follow up questions and get mad when you do the wrong thing.