DoorDash execs discover one weird trick to steal tips from drivers (it's just regular stealing)

New York Attorney General Letitia James just made DoorDash cough up $16.75 million for stealing drivers' tip, reports Courthouse News.

Here's how these sneaky bastards pulled it off: Let's say a driver was guaranteed $10 for schlepping your pad thai across town. If you, being a decent human, added a $5 tip, DoorDash would be like "Cool, now we only need to pay $5 to hit that $10 minimum!" Meanwhile, customers thought their tips were extra money on top of the base pay that's how tips work everywhere else on planet Earth.

"It was basically a bait-and-switch where customers thought they were supporting delivery workers, but instead they were subsidizing DoorDash instead," James said at a press conference. Of course, if you or I stole from our employer's till, we'd be doing the perp walk. But steal millions from gig workers while wearing a Patagonia vest? That'll just cost you a fraction of last quarter's profits. No third vacation home in Aspen for you this year!

DoorDash, which processed $21.3 billion in orders last year, is doing the corporate equivalent of "that was so four years ago," swearing that they ditched this shadiness back in 2019. "While we believe that our practices properly represented how Dashers were paid during this period," they said in the most corporate-speak ever, basically translating to "we're not sorry but here's your money back."

And thus concludes another heartwarming tale of American capitalism, where calling robbery an "old pay model that was retired" is a stay-of-out-jail card.

Previously:
• DoorDash data breach: 4.9 million customers, workers, and merchants' info stolen
• Lawsuits loom for DoorDash
• DoorDash 'still stealing tips,' say workers