Lawsuit accuses DoorDash of charging iPhone users more than others

The title doesn&#x27;t do it justice. These tactics are pretty dishonest I must admit:<p>&gt; Making its &quot;Delivery Fee&quot; seem related to distance or demand, even though none of it goes to the delivery person.<p>I could see they justify this as value-based pricing. As in, it would have costed more for you to travel farther to get the food from that particular restaurant if you were to order pickup. The thing I find dishonest is labeling this the &quot;delivery fee&quot;. I always thought that the money goes at this partially to the deliverer.<p>&gt; Offering an &quot;Express&quot; option that implies faster delivery, but then changing the wording to &quot;Priority&quot; in billing so it is not held to delivery times.<p>&gt; Charging an &quot;Expanded Range Delivery&quot; fee that seems based on distance but is really based on a restaurant&#x27;s subscription level and demand.<p>So things that bring no value to the user. The question is, if people know this will they vote with their dollars and move their business elsewhere?<p>&gt; Adding an undisclosed 99 cent &quot;marketing fee,&quot; paid by the customer rather than the restaurant, to promote menu items that customers add to their carts.<p>This one wins the cake. So each user is forced to pay a dollar to promote the items they have ordered from that menu. Let&#x27;s call this preach-flation?

Really depends on if the cost increase is due to Apple taking a cut. Restaurants usually charges more on these delivery apps anyways due to higher fees. It is usually cheaper to call your order into the restaurant and pick up than it is ordering via these app.<p>Delivery apps are an interesting industry because it seems that no one is making money. Delivery apps are not profitable, delivery people are complaining they are not making enough, restaurants are complaining that they dont make enough via the apps, and customers are complaining of higher costs. The industry doesn&#x27;t seem sustainable yet it keeps going

Price discrimination is a great way to reduce customer trust. I have a friend that Uber consistently charges 20% less than me, for the same trip, at the same time, and before any obvious discounts. My best guess is that it&#x27;s because of a trip to SF with a company card some years ago (high-cost area! Price insensitivity! Ka-ching goes the app). I will probably never learn the truth, but the result is that I avoid using Uber because it makes me feel ripped off.

(Non-practicing) Lawyer here. Interesting for them to bring the case, because offhand I&#x27;m struggling to figure out what they believe to be illegal or discriminatory <i>according to the law.</i><p>We have a ton of law on the books on the things that ARE illegal to discriminate on (protected classes), and none strike me as particularly close to this.<p>My &quot;consumer protection&quot; self loves to see companies get taken to task on this sort of thing, but I really don&#x27;t see what law they think they have to stand on here.

While deplorable, is price discrimination along non-protected customer segments (“classes”) illegal?

I got free DoorDash Premium or whatever (free delivery, less service fee) through my Chase card a while back. Don&#x27;t use it that often, but recently wanted to order something and saw that every restaurant I was interested in &quot;doesn&#x27;t qualify for free delivery.&quot; So that was a total scam.<p>Edit: This was a recent change, never used to have exceptions like this.

From the lawsuit quoting Door Dash terms and conditions...<p>&gt; DoorDash is not in the delivery business, does not provide delivery services, and is not a common carrier. DoorDash provides the Services to facilitate the transmission of orders by Users to Merchants, including orders for pickup or delivery by Contractors and&#x2F;or Merchants.<p>Amazingly ridiculous.

Is that illegal?<p>I don&#x27;t see how you can sue someone over &quot;discrimination based on phone manufacturer&quot;.

See also:<p>&gt; DoorDash accused of charging iPhone users more than Android users for deliveries (sfgate.com)<p>&gt; 15 points by mikhael 2 days ago<p>&gt; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=36007992" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=36007992</a>

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Price_discrimination" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Price_discrimination</a>

If people want to keep ordering takeout despite all these fees, is it not on them to vote with their dollars? It&#x27;s also well known that iPhone users pay more than Android users, so I don&#x27;t see why this sort of price discrimination would be bad, per se, much less <i>illegal</i> (what protected classes are being infringed upon here?), because, again, simply stop ordering takeout if the price is too high.

Huh? No no no, it&#x27;s just &quot;Optimizing Consumer Payments&quot;. This totally isn&#x27;t a crime.

I wonder if this is just some experimentation on customer pricing. For example, my partner and I often compare the prices before ordering. Sometimes, we see different delivery rates (both on iPhone, without promo, as non dashpass subscribers).

I&#x27;ve never ordered food delivered to my house. Let&#x27;s make that more explicit.<p><i>never</i><p>I found this novel thing called cooking. Really cuts down on hyper-processed food, salt and fat intake too.<p>I find the whole discussion alienating.