Lawsuit Alleges DoorDash Charges iPhone Users More Than Android

SFGate reports:

A proposed class-action lawsuit levels broad allegations that DoorDash, the San Francisco-headquartered food delivery giant, is engaging in fraudulent behavior — in part by charging iPhone users more than Android havers.

The complaint, a hefty 134-page airing of grievances about the fees and upsells faced while ordering on the app, filed by Maryland resident Ross Hecox and his children, contends that DoorDash conducts 'price discrimination' by allegedly charging iPhone users an 'expanded range fee' more often than their Android counterparts.

According to the suit, posted by Gizmodo, the fee — a markup to any deliveries outside of the user's immediate radius set by DoorDash — is arbitrarily applied without actually taking into account users' locations. At least seven tests with separate iPhone and Android devices were conducted by the plaintiffs to prove this point in the suit.

In one set of tests, an Android phone and an iPhone were used to place the same order — a breakfast sandwich with avocado and egg whites and a chocolate chip bagel from a nearby Panera Bread — to the same address simultaneously. In the first order, according to the suit, the iPhone was at the delivery location and the Android was 15 miles away; the iPhone user received the expanded range fee. In the second, the phones' locations were reversed, with the iPhone being used 15 miles away from the delivery site; the iPhone user, the suit alleges, was still charged the fee. In a third test involving Panera, the phones were both at the delivery location — the iPhone not only allegedly received the expanded range fee but was charged an additional dollar in delivery fees. Other tests allege that delivery fees on iPhone orders are 'greatly' inflated.


DoorDash called the complaints 'baseless and simply without merit,' in a statement to Gizmodo.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.