Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

Re:Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage by snowwrestler on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @04:12PM (#19100006)

Has anyone tried treating these transactions as actually fraudulent, and asking their credit card company to investigate and reverse the charges? I've heard the card companies will sometimes be pretty aggressive on the cardholders' behalf. That said, this would probably get your account banned from whatever service you try it on.

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Re:Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage by chrischen on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @07:05PM (#19101583)

From my experience they aren't necessarily always on your side, but for a small enough transaction they may not care. They don't investigate aggressively, rather they put the burden on doordash to prove all these small charges.

That being said, technically it's not allowed as you authorized the charges and maybe didn't get 100% of what you were advertised, but I'm not sure you can get a refund for that.

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Re:Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage by treis on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @11:06PM (#19102909)

>didn't get 100% of what you were advertised, but I'm not sure you can get a refund for that.

You can definitely get a refund for that. Realistically, DD will just refund the charges and then ban your account. Cheaper than fighting over a $15 tip, especially when disputes cost them whether they win or lose.

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Re:Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage by chrischen on Thursday February 07, 2019 @09:40PM (#19111025)

Disputes cost them maybe $15-$30 but then they can automate the response so there's no loss. Also, the dispute fees are charged regardless of if they choose to fight it, so they have no reason to unless they simply haven't automated responses.

While you can almost always get a refund for any small charge if you dispute it, it doesn't mean it's technically allowed by the terms, or as part of mandated laws. Laws around this generally only say the credit card company has to investigate your claims, but what they do, if anything, or how hard they "investigate" is not enforced. In practice instead of actually investigating a small $15 charge they'll just refund you.

Given a large enough charge, they will definitely not refund you unless it's like a 100% indisputable billing error case (like you send an invoice you received saying $100 but the statement charge shows something else).

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Re:Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage by raz32dust on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @07:34PM (#19101796)

Disputing charges comes with its cost though. I disputed something for the first time last month, and my credit score dropped by 30 points. Seems like disputes are considered a red flag until resolved (I am hoping, will have to see if it goes back up).

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