Food delivery is not a new concept, but in this heavily digitalized world delivery has been lost to technology. And of course, there are always incompetent people to sweeten the pot. Content edited for clarity.
Never, Ever Again
“It was blisteringly cold and my son really wanted Wendy’s as a treat. He had had a good day, but I did not want to drive down to the Wendy’s five miles out. So I ordered over the phone because a delivery driver would be sent with the food.
‘I will have a #3, the grilled chicken sandwich meal, with a Diet Coke for the drink. I will have a #10, a chicken nugget meal, with chocolate milk,’ I said.
The person on the phone spoke unaccented English, but I had to repeat this over and over. They couldn’t seem to get it right. We both got frustrated, but neither of us got snide. This was not a difficult order but I was patient until they got it right.
I got a call back 20 minutes later. This person spoke heavily accented English and was clearly confused. She said she was calling to verify my order, and I repeated the two meal combos over and over.
‘Yee-ess,’ she kept saying, ‘Es-spicy chicken nuggets—’
‘No,’ I kept saying, ‘Not spicy. Regular. Plain. Just chicken nuggets.’
‘Ok,’ she said, ‘Es-spicy chicken nuggets.’
‘NO,’ I said in exasperation, ‘NOT SPICY. If you make them spicy, he will not be able to eat them. He does not like spicy food. Do not put spicy nuggets in the bag.’
‘Ok,’ she said and finally read me the order back correctly.
Half an hour later, my son was getting cranky. He had been promised Wendy’s chicken nuggets, it had been over an hour, and the restaurant was five minutes away. What the heck was going on?
Now I got a call from the manager at the Wendy’s.
‘Did you order DoorDash?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said and then followed the next ten minutes of confusion.
I wound up losing my temper a bit and said, ‘Look, we’ve waited over an hour. Just put some food in a bag and bring it over here.’
‘No, we want to get it right,’ he replied, and finally, he read the order to me correctly.
The guy arrived, half an hour later, and handed me the food. I looked inside, and it looked correct. I tipped him well—it was not his fault what happened and it was freezing—and went inside to plate the food.
I was irate when I got the food out of the bag if you could even call it food. It was ICE COLD. From five miles down the road.
I heated the nuggets up in the microwave. The sandwich was beef, which I don’t eat. The chicken nuggets were spicy, so my son spat them out. I like some spicy food, so I tried switching the meals, but the beef was like cardboard. He wouldn’t eat the burger, and the nuggets were so spicy that I couldn’t eat them either. The fries were cold, wet, and limp. The milk wasn’t chocolate, and the soda wasn’t diet. Total disaster.
I called the corporate number. I told them that I ordered from them, waited over and over, and received two incorrect, inedible meals. The conversation went around and around with me getting more frustrated by the minute.
‘Well, you got the food,’ he kept insisting.Y
‘You got the order wrong. We can’t eat it,’ I countered.
Finally, in exasperation, he told me he would credit me the full amount of what I paid. I threw the food-like substances in the trash. We drove to Wendy’s, ordered a #3 with a Diet Coke, and a #10 with chocolate milk, and actually got them.
The next month, I get my bill. I felt the frustration all over again.
They charged me three times for the order. There was only one refund. So guess who called corporate again?
My landline has a timer. It took me twenty-two minutes to get the woman on the other end to understand basic math.
‘You got your refund,’ she whined.
‘I got one refund. I got three charges. You need to give me two more refunds,’ I replied trying not to lose my cool.
‘You got the food,’ she whined again.
‘I couldn’t eat it. The order was incorrect. The food was ice cold and inedible. That’s why I was given a refund,’ I said stiffly.
‘I see the refund authorized. You got the refund,’ she snapped.
She had to consult a supervisor twice. She kept insisting I got my refund. She got nasty with me. I was keeping my voice as even as possible, repeating over and over, ‘$19.73 times three equals $59.19. For me to get the full refund that I was promised, you need to credit me $59.19, not $19.73.’
She saw the charges on my bill, but the math was somehow over her head.
Finally, she got it. Her tone retreated and she got embarrassed, but she did not apologize.
I will never, never, ever use Door ‘Dash’ again.”
Merry Go Round
“I will never, ever, do business with Doordash(DD).
And one of the reasons is that DD thinks I am one of their customers, which I am NOT!
Here’s the situation. This afternoon I found a bag of McDonald’s ‘food’ sitting on a chair near the opening of my garage. I assumed my partner had ordered it, because I, myself, would rarely eat anything from Mickey D’s. Except on pain of death, which would be about the same thing as eating their food.
But she denied ordering anything, so I brought it to my office to more carefully examine it.
Nothing on the bag indicated the delivery address, so I decided to ask Doordash, itself, where it might go. At least I could let them know a customer would be most unhappy, and hungry, owing to the misdelivery.
Doordash has a chat number. And that’s where the ridiculousness started. The following exchange will suggest why I thought I was dealing with complete idiots:
DD: Hi! My name is Kubra. Give me a few seconds to pull up your account info
ME: I don’t have an account. I have a misdelivery
DD: Can you please elaborate on your concern? So, I’ll be glad to check and help you.
ME: Pickup # 994971. Not my order.
DD: I understand that is not your order. Please help me with your correct email address.
ME: [my email address]
DD: Thanks for the details. Please allow me a minute for the same.
ME: OK. The food is cold. This order belongs to someone else. But who?
DD: I would like to inform you that all the dashes that you receive are automated, we as an agent do not have the option to allocate.
ME: So what do I do with this order that belongs to someone else?
DD: I would like to inform you that since the order is active and the customer is waiting for food, Sorry I don’t have the option to cancel, But yes if you want to unassign your self I can help you out.
ME: I am not a door dash driver and I do not use door dash. Your driver –whoever that is, delivered someone else’s order to me.
DD: Please don’t worry I have documented this case, Sometimes the app glitches you can ignore it.
ME: I’m not using any app! I’m just someone who received a door dash delivery that belongs to some other customer. What now?
This is when I was transferred to another ‘agent’ better placed to deal with my concern.
DD: Hi! My name is Eden. Give me a few seconds to pull up your account info
ME: I don’t have an account.
DD: I hope that you are safe and well! I’d be happy to assist you today.
ME: Doordash delivered someone else’s order to me. What should I do with it?
DD: Hi, how may I help you today? I understand your disappointment about receiving someone else’s order. This is not what we intended for you to experience. I’ll check for the available options that we have so we can resolve this right away.
ME: Meanwhile, the actual customer hasn’t received their order. And I did not order anything through Doordash.
DD: I understand the inconvenience this has caused you. I can totally see why you would be upset. Let me check what I can do
ME: Eden: I’m not upset. YOU should be upset because your driver delivered someone else’s order to me.
DD: Thank you so much for all this information, the other customer is probably reaching out to us too and it will be taken care of as I’m assisting you today. May I place you on hold for a minute or two?
ME: Well, if the ‘other’ customer is a neighbor, I can drop it off. The pickup number is 994971
DD: In the meantime, can you please verify your email address and phone number you used in placing this order please? Thank you.
ME: EDEN! I did not place the order! It just showed up here. I don’t use Dordash at all. I have no account with you. I’m telling you your driver put the order in my garage and I just discovered it there. It’s a Mcdonald’s order. Do you want a picture of it?
DD: I’m sorry about this, thank you. Let me hand you over to the right department for this. Again, we’re sorry about this. Please hold. I’ll inform them. Thanks, but please stay on the line.
Of course, I was transferred again.
DD: Hi! Thanks for chatting in. We look forward to assisting you. A member of our team will be with you shortly. Thank you for reaching out to DoorDash and being one of our most loyal and valuable customers. My name is Rohan and I’ll do everything I can to resolve all your issues today. I’m incredibly sorry to hear about your issue. Do not worry. Now as I’m aware of your issue I will fix this right away. Please allow me a minute to two while I quickly work on getting the best resolution for one of the loyal and valuable customers.
ME: Well, do you see the previous chat? Or are we starting from scratch? And I am NOT your customer. Someone ELSE is, and I have their order!
DD: Okay wait please let me check on this.
ME: Good plan.
DD: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
ME: No. Just tell me who should get the order that was delivered to me by mistake.
DD: To confirm has someone hacked your account?
ME: Rohan, pay close attention: I don’t have a Doordash account. I don’t use Doordash at all. Therefore there is no account to be hacked. Your driver delivered to me an order for someone else.
DD: Please stay connected while I transfer you to the right department.
ME: Oh goodie.
Another transfer.
DD: Hi! Thanks for chatting in. We look forward to assisting you. A member of our team will be with you shortly. Hi! Thank you for your patience, my name is Alpha from the Escalations Team and I will be assisting you today. You reported that our driver delivered an order to your address that is intended for someone else. Is that correct?
ME: YES!
DD: Thank you for letting us know. Right now we’re unable to confirm whose order it is since we have hundreds of orders in our system. If you want you can consume the food or you give it to someone. The customer who orders that food will surely contact us, and we will properly assist them. Is there anything else I can help you with?
ME: I should think so. But it took you a LONG time to figure out the order had been misdelivered. I’m going to put this episode on social media and see what everyone else thinks about your dreadful service. Good Bye, and I WILL NEVER USE DOORDASH!”
