Comment by hannasanarion
6 years ago
Why does it matter if the owner is reimbursing their non-owning customers? Restaurants do that all the time.
6 years ago
Why does it matter if the owner is reimbursing their non-owning customers? Restaurants do that all the time.
(IANAL) My gut says coordination would be be evidence of both (a) premeditated intent & (b) knowledge that actions constituted fraud.
One could place a personal order (or 100) innocently.
One looks substantially less innocent when coordinating with a third party to place orders and transfer money around.
While that speaks to the severity of the crime (if one were proven), as you noted, it doesn't in any way impact whether that behavior is a crime at all.
But who's defrauding who? If the doordash website says I can buy a dough pizza for $19, then doordash has to get me a dough pizza for $19 when I buy one. No fraud is happening, doordash is fulfilling the requirements of the contract they make with all their customers.
If anything, the one who's committing fraud is doordash, because they're putting in "takeout" orders with the restaurant and presenting them as "delivery" orders to the customer.
In the example from TFA, Doordash says you can buy a pizza for $16 and charges you $16. The restaurant menu price is $24, and Doordash pays $24 for the pizza. That's... the starting place. (As screwy as it is)
Now, if I order a dough pizza for $16, in coordination with the restaurant, and Doordash pays $24 to the restaurant, and the restaurant gives me a dough pizza, and then the restaurant makes it worth my while, what do we have?
Doordash has been paid $16, and spent $24 + (cost of delivery) = (-) SoftBank money
The restaurant has been paid $24 and spent ~$1 (cost of dough pizza [1]) = ~$23 profit (minus labor)
I paid $16 (let's ignore tip). The restaurant reimburses me for that (me: $0, restaurant: $7) to make it worth my while, and then splits profits with me (me: $3.50, restaurant: $3.50).
So at the end, Doordash: -$8 - delivery cost, restaurant: $3.50, me: $3.50.
It's the reimbursement of the customer that seems... suspect.
The way to ethically monetize this would be for restaurants to target Doordash misprices, and "sell" coupons (a food box, containing only a paper coupon), good for future food orders directly through the restaurants. Then encourage all their customers to buy as much as possible.
[1] We'll say we return and recycle the boxes, being environmentally conscious citizens
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