Comment by ButlerianJihad
5 hours ago
I've had a real dramatic history with more than one food delivery service since the pandemic. It got so dramatic this year that one of them, after I had used them extremely heavily for years, they sent me a friendly warning email that claimed I had been rude and abusive on their platform, and they wouldn't hesitate to cut me off.
Just to give them some space, I'm using a different service, which is no better. They are all horrible, overpriced, and the drivers DGAF, and so I am routinely triggered into this rudeness they complain of. Recently I had another episode where my drinks went missing. Consistently. And so a couple of times, I pursued a tip reduction through the app or through their Support or whatever. Their Human Support Agents swore up and down that I should be able to zero the tip in my app. I swore up and down that there was no option at all for this. I raged and stressed so hard about this. The app kept claiming it was Human Support's responsibility to reduce/zero tips. Human Support swore that they were unable and disempowered to do such a thing.
I finally resolved this with an LLM conversation. The LLM revealed that "some customers are flagged as high-risk and their ability to reduce/remove tips will be disabled by the platform." This made perfect sense why the CSRs all believed that I should have the option, but it was disabled "for security reasons". It was appalling to me that they considered me "high risk" of stiffing a driver. Because I have always been very very careful to take care of drivers' tips generously because I sort of understand what they go through, even when a small percentage are overt assholes and DGAF. They mostly still deserve their tips and wages.
But the platform removed my ability to penalize them and reclaim my discretionary funds from a gratuity paid in advance and that really, really infuriates me. There is, of course, no way to start at $0 tip and increase it, because the drivers will simply decline to even claim your order in the first place. Because gratuities in advance are an incentive and bait to claim orders. They are not tips, they are bribes.
> gratuities in advance are an incentive and bait to claim orders. They are not tips, they are bribes.
Exactly. And not even bribes that give lasting benefits. I used to make sure when I moved into a new place to tip a little extra at the door, especially when the restaurant is close by, because drivers would remember and it could make the difference between being the first or last house they stop at, but now even when you place your order directly with the restaurant it's often some random app using non-employee who shows up. All the food delivery apps are scammy. I've increasingly resorted to driving out to order and pick up food myself. The food is hotter, the prices are lower, and there's zero fees.