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I Got Burned TWICE After Getting Reactivated on Doordash, Here’s What Happened…
- Joseph Mandracchia
- May 20
- 8 min read
So recently, I have been reactivated on Doordash which was a great thing for me to be honest. And while I would have loved to stay in the honeymoon phase of winning this 4 ½ year battle for myself, I have immediately been scammed by people in my own market.
Both on the restaurant side and the customers side.
So in this video, We are talking about:
How I got scammed twice on the Doordash Platform
What Doordash was saying, what those scammers were saying vs How it ACTUALLY is
Everything in between!
Disclaimer: The content of this video does not contain and is never intended to be legal, business, financial, tax, or health advice of any kind. This video is for entertainment, educational, and informational purposes only. It is advised that you conduct your own research and consult with qualified professionals before applying anything you find online.
I also want to be clear that everything we are going to go over is very market dependent, and what applies to me and my market may not apply to you.
Getting Scammed by a Customer
The first scam I would like to talk about quickly is about getting scammed by a customer. I took an order for $10.52 for 5 miles from Huey Magoo's Chicken, which is solid and pick up was simple.
I was given an address that stated an apartment number that was imputed into the app, and for the sake of privacy and not giving too much information about our customer, I am going to just say 211.
I finish the leave at the door order, making sure I keep the unit number in the shot and head back to my car. When I got close to my car, someone called out to me asking if I was there to deliver food, and asked if my name was Jorge.
I was there to deliver, but my name is not Jorge.
I start driving back to where I was, and I get a call from that customer where he plays victim and claims that I delivered to the other side of the area and tries to lie to me about delivering to the right location.
This is a common refund method and honestly a pathetic one at that.
But what made it worse is that I didn’t get a contract violation, I got a Quality Rate hit. That is really impactful from the perspective of someone still trying to come back after reactivation and because it isn’t a violation, I can’t dispute it.
So I can be 100% right, and they can have the documentation to back up my claims, but because they still made the report, I still get the hit. Like I am at fault for their claim that it never arrived when you have the documentation that it did?
It isn’t like he is my kid and I am responsible for him as a parent, he is just some random customer who is trying to get a free meal out of Doordash.
And that isn’t even the craziest scenario I ended up in.
Getting Scammed by a Restaurant
So as I am coming back to this app, there are some restaurants that have blocked me on UberEats because of previous disputes, but they didn’t block me on Doordash.
One of them is a First Watch that is right by my home. I had made a video about this dispute already, but my thought process was it has been a LONG time since that event. Which means people could have been hired, fired, left of their own accord and overall emotions could have been diminished.
Since this location has earned a reputation for being higher volume, I figured I would just accept it and if they won’t hand me the order, I will just unassign and move on, otherwise I'll just get back to it like any other restaurant.
In my mind, it couldn’t hurt to try.
Honestly, I arrived and I haven’t felt such a warm welcome in a long time. I had a rapport with a lot of the staff prior to that incident and it was really just one manager just being an asshole, but I didn’t expect a warm welcome.
One staff member was excited to see me again and said they were so pissed when that manager, Jonavan or whatever his name was, had me blocked on UberEats.
One staff member remembered me and waved, one said hello, and I can tell the others knew me but didn’t say anything so it is what it is.
Regardless, the order came out and the milk spilled from it so they made a new one, they said they had 2 people with the same name and said that was everything for the order I was there for. I delivered the order and the customer claimed I was missing half the items.
I explain that I was told by First Watch that was everything and I can’t check sealed bags. And proceed with the rest of my day, wondering how it is so dead on a Saturday.
Only to get an email later saying I created a hostile environment for a merchant, and since I only did 2 orders that day I am more than capable of putting 2 and 2 together.
What was the point of playing nice though? I didn’t start an issue, they were happy to see me. I honestly don’t know if it was a misunderstanding, a staff issue, or an attempt to avoid accountability for missing items.
Regardless, I have taken an order from them during the week and didn’t have an issue so I am thinking it was just the weekend crew trying not to get penalized for missing items.
However these events raised a bunch of red flags for me personally.
No Appeals Process?
Now each of these events took place and at no period of time was I allotted an opportunity to state my side of things. Which is typical for ratings and “warning notifications” but wow, not even a chance to explain?
I know I can state my side if I get a violation, but because there was no violation I get the rating hit and the throttling by not having the opportunity to fight back?
That almost makes it worse.
Like a restaurant can just say I was cursing and flailing my arms like a mad man, hopping on tables and shaking my ass, and even if the story is completely unbelievable, because it was told at all, I get the punishment for it?
I know that seems like a lot but it also makes my point of a merchant could theoretically exaggerate an interaction dramatically just like I can in an article to offset the blame from the restaurant to the driver.
And honestly, this kind of thing isn’t even unique to my situation. We’ve seen other DoorDash-related controversies where people frame themselves as victims in ways that become heavily debated depending on what actually happened.
I remember talking about one of those situations during a previous livestream discussion, and it really made me think about how difficult it is for platforms to fairly evaluate incidents when they only get fragments of the story.
Regardless, it is kind of nuts that there isn’t an appeal to when you get a rating like that considering how quickly it affects your ratings and your orderflow.
Heavy Throttling
Like I said, after that happened I barely got any pings or offers, and it was a Saturday. Which leads me to believe that I was either not in a great physical position, or I ended up getting throttled HARD.
Which makes sense in theory, like if Doordash cannot tell if I am safe to work with, would they send me orders in the interim? Probably not.
However, I cannot tell if that is a normal amount of throttling, all things considered, or if I should expect this type of throttling after every incident. I don’t know, but I really hope it is not a regular occurrence.
One Step in the Right Direction
I have to give credit where credit is due and say they did do something right in this case and they became much more specific when it comes to ratings and warnings. They didn’t tell you that “a violation occurred” or “we received a report from someone”.
They outright tell you what kind of violation you received and which party it is associated with. It isn’t a guessing game anymore.
That was one of my greater critiques of the platform in the past and I am glad they at least took that note.
Now they only need to give me a chance to dispute a quality rating hit and I think I am overall happy.
Honestly though, situations like this started making me think about something bigger for myself.
May Be Time to Move
This is more of a personal note but, one of the things that these incidents made me think about is how I have had plans to move from my current market and into a new one.
While I do make some decent money here and I can see some room for growth all things considered, I just think my history kind of left a weird mark.
Like sure, I don’t regret standing on business, and with every merchant that I have had it out with, I came out on top. I also think that a fresh start might do me good too ya know?
I got an account back that I have been off of for years and I am happy about that, but the history of working with merchants didn’t exactly just become forgotten.
I definitely plan on moving at some point to be closer to family in the Orlando area. I may consider moving the date up or really honing my research on a location that is suitable for both gig work and the other business that I am planning on pursuing out there and not just one.
Nevertheless, the one thing that must be considered before moving is if I cannot make as much out there on both fronts then it cannot be done until a certain milestone is hit, but more on that a different day.
Today is not the day to overthink logistics on this kind of unrelated subject.
Final Thoughts
Look, this is nothing new for the gig community. This really is just par for the course, but honestly I think it was worth mentioning.
Yes, Doordash has made some real changes that seem to help the overall community such as receipt scanning and I have acknowledged that in my last video, but it is amazing that it happened the moment I got back on.
It definitely has made me think about my immediate future more and while research is necessary and I have other methods of earning and working in the meantime, it does show how you can add features and change the system, but you can’t change people and principles.
I haven’t seen the scamming customer, but I have been to that First Watch again and haven’t had another issue so I wonder if they realized that “hey, he isn’t so bad, maybe that douche who doesn’t work here anymore was the problem” but it doesn’t change my position much.
I will continue to take orders that profit me, keep building my business, expand my earning opportunities, and overall move towards my life goals and my business goals.
Regardless, I am looking forward to navigating this again on a platform that seems to have improved overall but still can use some improvements in other areas.
If you would like to add some other perspective to these 2 Doordash scams, feel free to email me: drivenwyld@gmail.com and who knows? Maybe your email or perspective and be featured in a post as well!
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