DoorDash is taking another step to prevent customers from lying about their food not being delivered.
On Friday, the third-party restaurant delivery company said that it will require some customers to share a four-digit code with their delivery person to confirm they received their order. The new feature will be reserved for “certain situations” or customers who frequently report problems with their deliveries.
The company said that the vast majority of customers request refunds only when something actually goes wrong, but that there are rare instances in which a customer makes a false report in hopes of getting free food.
Delivery fraud can hurt restaurants, which may have to cover the cost of purportedly missing orders or items. It also impacts couriers, who can have their accounts suspended if they fail to complete deliveries.
This form of fraud is fairly common in ecommerce. In survey results published this year by fraud protection company Sift, 42% of Gen Zers and 22% of millennials admitted to requesting a refund for an online purchase even though they received the item. Sift also found that chargeback rates for food and delivery orders increased 31% year over year in the first quarter of 2023.
Under DoorDash’s new prevention measure, customers will receive a four-digit PIN in their DoorDash app and will have to show the PIN to the delivery person when they arrive with the order. The courier will then enter the code into their own app to ensure it’s a match before handing over the food.
If the customer can’t provide a PIN, the courier will note that it wasn’t provided. It was unclear how DoorDash would handle those situations.
The idea is to create a foolproof way to confirm that an order was actually delivered. It could also prevent delivery people from making off with the food themselves.
DoorDash and fellow delivery apps Uber Eats and Grubhub have other ways of policing fraud, including flagging customers who repeatedly complain of missing items and requesting photo evidence in some cases. The apps may also flag drivers who have a history of missing-item complaints.
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