Trouble with delivery companies. What are my options for mass charging back?

[Rombloid]

Over the past three months, I have been ordering a lot of Uber Eats and GrubHub. Every now and then I fall into the habit of ordering mostly delivery. (Have to do a few hours of work to get my kitchen back up fully) The issue I have run into is these delivery apps have gotten really bad at delivery, and if you frequent them they'll charge you for undelivered items. This can be the delivery guy dropping the order off at the completely wrong address.

Ok, I understand they're getting scammed a lot from these delivery guys and they're trying to mitigate that. However, I've sent photographic evidence in of damaged items, and proof the food was dropped off at a different address from mine (took a photo of my front entrance and sent the photo GrubHub gave) and they still refuse to refund. I can chargeback and eventually I cannot order delivery except directly from a few restaurants who have really good customer service, and are only on GrubHub and Uber Eats because they have to be on there. What happens with GrubHub and Uber Eats is if you frequently itemize refunds for non-delivered items after a few requests they just cut you off entirely. Ten years ago this is what kept people on the platform, as they'd refund and give a free meal. But, the error rate was lower back then too.

The fundamental problem is the labor. No matter which gig company you go to it is all the same people scamming them bouncing back and forth between like four or five employers. Even if you chargeback and switch to another business the problem is not solved. The delivery drivers were not like this ten years ago. I have done delivery for Uber before as well, and what happens is the app does not always send you to the right place. I believe a portion have figured out how to get away with dropping the food close to the location when finding it would ruin their hourly income. Anyone know what has changed?

A huge problem with this is they have terms that highly limit the ability to sue them. A lawyer suggested I write my congressman to ask them to add to the Federal Arbitration Act to exempt consumer claims. That would enable class actions, which is what is really needed to fix this problem. We might also licensing laws / guilds around delivery, and if you do a bad job the guild bans you from the industry for life, and you can no longer deliver. There is a further out solution which is replacing the delivery drivers with robots. Know what other legal options are possible?

I'm sure this **bleep** also affects other gig platforms like Fiverr and such. Definitely, Yelp as they don't take businesses down who have defrauded their users. Met a terrible plumber on there who created a real nightmare, and he was the only guy willing to fix my toilet problem, everyone else looked at it and never came back. He made it worse.  They have no process for reporting bad businesses manipulating votes to continue operations.

More importantly in the mean time, since most credit card companies are rather generous with chargeback claims. I have never lost a chargeback where my reasoning was dissatisfaction with the service or product delivered. My thinking is if the card company sees like five to ten orders with errors or non-delivery they might just honor the past three months worth of charges to Uber to chage back. Anyone know if it's possible to file a mass charge back without having to fill out the form for every charge on the card?

[TrapLine]

Appreciate your sharing the happenings related to food delivery.

Most unfortunate state of affairs and sound like another good thing that goes up in smoke!

[GZG]

you need to use uber eats and you need to tip at least $3, or $1 per mile if you are requesting a longer delivery (in app prior to delivery, not in cash)

tip less and you get undesirable drivers, tip more and your order is used as bait for newer drivers 

(advice not applicable if your area pays drivers hourly like NYC or SEA or CA wherever they are doing that

in uber eats, you can provide multiple pictures to show what a proper delivery looks like, it should be an idiot-proof step-by-step guide to how to get the delivery to your door, assume the instructions need to be followed by a 10 year old

if the delivery is done correctly, use the thumbs up on the driver and give them all of the compliments in the app with the buttons when they ask you how delivery was. I imagine uber will attempt to send future orders to any drivers you've marked with a thumbs up.

if delivery was not done correctly, use the thumbs down and provide any accurate things about their misdelivery and that way they will never be assigned to your orders on uber eats again

[Rombloid]

I can no longer use Uber. They have banned me as I have charged back one order already. I'm looking to do more as I just use one credit card for them. I typically tip 20% to 30%.

We have to start ordering directly from restaurants again. They refund, and they'll fire the delivery guy over **bleep** like this. There's just no quality control anymore. What I believe was going on in the past is these apps gave above market income to workers, while giving discounts to customers to dump on the competition. Once they're driven out of business you raise prices, and start all of these **bleep**ty practices.

[Jessie]

I've always had pretty good success getting refunded for missing items on delivery apps. It is frustrating though.

[Rombloid]

I used to. What tactic do you use?

[ptatohed]

Not so sure this topic falls under Personal Finance.  

I've never (directly) used any food delivery service.  The rare times that I order delivery (I don't mind picking up / take out), I just order delivery from within the given restaurant's app.  Whoever they use for delivery, they use.  Yes, I pretty much only order from fast food or pizza chains.  

The number of mistakes you are talking about seems excessively high.  How many food deliveries do you do each month and what percent would you say have mistakes?  

[Rombloid]

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@ptatohed wrote:

Not so sure this topic falls under Personal Finance.  

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It's just personal finance in the sense of it touching the credit card chargeback mechanism, and I'm trying to figure out how to navigate that without having to spend hours filling out forms. Is my best option basically writing a webscript to automate filling out those forms?

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@ptatohed wrote:

I've never (directly) used any food delivery service.  The rare times that I order delivery (I don't mind picking up / take out), I just order delivery from within the given restaurant's app.  Whoever they use for delivery, they use.  Yes, I pretty much only order from fast food or pizza chains. 

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Yeah, ordering directly from the restaurant's app your order is going to go better. I think the Grubhubs just give discounts for awhile to get you using them by default. I would pick up, but I don't own a car. I live in the city and having one is a hassle.

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@ptatohed wrote:

The number of mistakes you are talking about seems excessively high.  How many food deliveries do you do each month and what percent would you say have mistakes?  

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I probably order about 20 times per month over the past few months. I'd say probably 25%. Most of them just miss a sauce or a modification paid for through the app. A lot of the time the restaurant forgets modifications. So, I don't pay for that as often. It's probably only about 2 to 3 per month that are completely nondelivery. Though I'd say about half of the orders get dropped off at a building within a block radius of mine. As long as it is not dropped outside I get it.

But, I don't always find it when the delivery guy drops it at a building near mine. Multiple times GrubHub and Uber Eats have refused to refund me over this going back to just after Covid, and it is getting worse lately. A lot of people just tell you to not order delivery. I should cut back but is rather convient, and I am really not spending that much in total. Maybe, a bit more for food than I need to.  So, I don't get a Jet Ski, which I don't really want to buy. I just wish it was easy to charge back everything and close my account, until we change the law to fix this **bleep**.

[dfwxjer]

With this many "issues" a reasonable person would stop using those services. 

[ptatohed]

Yeah, time to start cooking at home I think.  Or how about those delivery services like Hello Fresh, Home Chef, etc?  Heck, I actually really like those $3 Healthy Choice frozen meals.