DC Attorney General Suing DoorDash Over Tips

WASHINGTON, DC — D.C.'s attorney general has announced a lawsuit against DoorDash, accusing the food delivery company of deceiving customers about where their tips go.

Attorney General Karl A. Racine alleges that DoorDash encourages consumers to tip for food deliveries, and then pockets the tips instead of giving them to workers.

DoorDash previously offered a guaranteed minimum payment for delivery, and tips went to offset that before they went to the driver. The company argued that the system ensured drivers were paid when customers didn't tip, but they eventually reversed the policy after an uproar.

Now, the office of the attorney general is seeking to recover millions of dollars in tip money that customers believed were paying workers, and for civil penalties, the office said in a statement.

“DoorDash misled consumers, who reasonably believed that their tips would go to workers, not the company’s bottom line,” Racine said in the statement. "We are filing suit to put a stop to this deceptive practice and secure monetary relief for those harmed by DoorDash’s actions.”

DoorDash works similarly to other service apps like Uber, in that consumers place an order and a DoorDash worker claims the job and delivers it for the consumer. The company employs hundreds of thousands of people and has operations all over the country.

"OAG launched an investigation of DoorDash’s tipping practices in March 2019," the statement reads. "The investigation, which examined the company’s practices during the period of July 2017 to September 2019, confirmed that DoorDash used consumer tips to offset the company’s payment to workers. The company encouraged consumers to tip, and even included a default recommended tip for all orders.

"However, under the company’s deceptive payment model, the worker was paid the same in nearly all cases, no matter how much the consumer tipped," the statement adds. "DoorDash actually used tips from consumers to cover its payment to workers instead of passing tips along as a gratuity—meaning that the more consumers tipped, the less DoorDash had to pay workers itself."

A copy of the complaint against DoorDash can be found here.