Getting Paid by Doordash When Customer Cancels an Order

For a dasher, canceled orders are never a good thing, and they are even worse if the cancellation occurs after the dasher has driven many miles to the merchant but has yet to reach the restaurant. Unfortunately, order cancellations are part of the game, and these cancellations will happen every once in a while. The reason that I write about this tonight is because I had an order cancellation tonight and had a little misunderstanding about payment issues with the Doordash representative.

My ping to the merchant was a usual call, and I arrived at the restaurant to pick up the goods in about 15 minutes. While walking in and glimpsing at the customers order, I see that they ordered a burger and a six pack of liquor. Okay, no problem here. When I entered the restaurant and tell them that I am here for so and so, the lady that works at takeout tells me that the customer called up the restaurant and canceled his order. She also let me know about his bad attitude because they had ran out of stock of the beer that he wanted. Anyways, the order was not canceled on the Doordash app because the customer never called Doordash directly to cancel. He just told the restaurant to cancel. The girl that works at this restaurant could not even get the order off of their Doordash tablet. I told her that once I called Doordash and let them know about the incident, the order would be canceled on all of our devices.

I called Doordash and let them know the situation, and they called the customer to verify the cancellation and that was that. Now, it came time to talk about my payment for showing up at the restaurant. I have been through this before, and I know that Doordash will always pay a flat $2 rate for showing up at the merchant. It used to be $2.50, but that got changed many months ago. I received my $2 and went on with my day. Not a great deal for any dasher, but I guess it is better than nothing. This got me thinking about all of the different types of cancellation situations that I have been involved with in the past.

When a Doordash customer cancels an order directly with the restaurant

This is probably the most uncommon cancellation scenario there is, but it has happened to me on a few occasions since I began dashing.It is kind of weird when a customer cancels their order directly with the restaurant instead of cancelling with Doordash. I mean, really, Doordash is the company that the order was placed with. It makes no sense to me why a customer would cancel directly with the restaurant.

When this happens, it is really not a good situation for the dasher. The dasher will have wasted valuable time driving to the merchant only to find out that they will not earn much for their time. Doordash has no idea that the order was canceled as the merchant will not usually contact Doordash about it. Then the dasher has to waste their time contacting Doordash about the situation. All of this and all the dasher will get is $2. This type of cancellation is one of the worst situations for a dasher, but as I have mentioned, this type of cancellation is very rare.

On a side note, there are times when a dasher could end up with free food. For this to happen, the dasher will have to be a regular that knows the staff at the restaurant. On a couple of occasions the merchants have asked me if I wanted the food. They had no use for it so they figured that they may as well just give it to me. Of course this is only possible if the food was already prepared. I wouldn't count on this or expect it though as there have been times when the food was prepared and the restaurant did not offer it to me. I guess they would rather eat it themselves or throw it in the garbage.

When a Doordash customer cancels their order with Doordash before the dasher reaches the restaurant

This is the worst case scenario for any dasher. After receiving and accepting an order, the dasher begins driving to the merchant. The dasher may have driven miles and may be close to arriving at the restaurant. Being only a a mile or so away, all of a sudden, the dasher receives a text on their phone letting them know that the customer's order was canceled.

The dasher never arrived at the restaurant so Doordash will feel that they have no reason to pay out anything. There will not be any $2 for the dasher. This is not a very good situation for the driver because they may have driven 5 or 10 miles already as they were making their way to the restaurant. Money was wasted on gas, and it is a total loss of gas and time.

This type of situation does not happen often with Doordash, and it has only happened to me two times. I will say that compared to other on-demand delivery companies Doordash is pretty good with this. With another on-demand delivery company that I have contracted with before, the customer cancellation rate was ridiculous. It was common for the customers to cancel their order while you were on the way to the restaurant. I believe that the company I am referring to made it too damn easy for customer's to just hit a cancellation button at any time. With Doordash, drivers should not worry about this happening as it is very rare.

When a Doordash customer cancels their order with Doordash after the dasher reaches the restaurant

This scenario can play out in a few different ways. What happens will depend on if the food has already been prepared by the merchant or not. I have arrived at a merchant's location before, and have had Doordash contact me while I was there waiting for the food.

I remember one time Doordash called me and told me that the order has been canceled, and that was the end of that. The food had not been prepared by the restaurant yet. As far as pay was concerned, I received a small compensation, yes the $2, but I did not receive the promised pay that I would have received had this been a normal and completed delivery.

Another time, the situation was almost exactly the same. I walked away from the merchant with the small compensation pay, but the food was already prepared and bagged up. The girl that worked at this restaurant handed me the bag of food and said to enjoy. I was pretty hungry that day, and it was terrific food that I did indeed enjoy. It is really up to the worker as to whether they will do this or not. There was another exact situation at another merchant when I thought they would hand over the prepared food, but this restaurant was not going to hand me anything! You should never expect free food in a situation like this, but if the workers are nice enough to give it to you, and it is food you like, there is no reason to not take it.

When a Doordash customer cancels their order after the dasher has picked up the food

After picking up the food from the restaurant and being in route to deliver the food to the customer, a dasher may receive a call from Doordash letting them know that the order has been canceled. With the food already picked up and in the car already, Doordash support will tell the dasher to just go on ahead and keep the food. This can be a win or lose situation depending on whether the dasher likes the food or not. Yes! The dasher gets to keep the food and eat it if they want.

When this has happened to me, the food was usually something I liked so I got to enjoy it. I remember one time a Doordash customer ordered about $80 of food and canceled while I was in route delivering the food to them. I took all the food home and had a Jack-In-Box fiesta with my family. I must say that there was one time though when a situation like this happened, and I was stuck with food that nobody at my home would ever eat. I ended up just throwing it all in the garbage.

In situations like this, Doordash will pay you the full amount that was promised to you. You performed your duties as you should, and it is not your fault that the customer canceled. Getting paid for the delivery and getting the free food is a win-win situation for the dasher. Doordash does not like taking the loss of the food, but they are put in a situation where they cannot do anything about it. The food has already been paid for so they would much rather have you eat it I am sure.

Canceling a Doordash order yourself when the customer is too far

This type of cancellation is entirely different from the ones that I already mentioned as the dasher will make the cancellation themselves instead of the customer initiating the cancellation. You may be thinking why a dasher would cancel an order because it is too far. That doesn't seem right. I mean, before accepting the order a dasher can look at the map and see how far the customer is. Shouldn't the dasher be obligated to make the delivery to the customer after accepting the order. I think so, but the type of situation that I am about to mention throws obligation out the window.

This situation has happened to me four times. It starts out as a regular call, I get to the restaurant and pick up the food, and then I am on my way to the customer. As I am driving, I receive a phone call from the customer. Apparently, the customer forgot to change their address. The address on the order is not valid. Instead, they are some place else, and it is always some place very far away. They will ask me if I can deliver to their current location, and I will usually tell them that I will have to contact Doordash first. I do this because I am not going to just straight out tell them that I am not and argue with somebody on the phone. I remember in one of these situations the person was 40 mile away. Do you really think that I am gong to driver 40 miles for $8?

After contacting Doordash and letting them know the situation, they will usually make an offer of extra pay. This is always only a few dollars more, and I will always decline their lousy offer. Doordash has no choice but to cancel the order, and in every situation like this I have still been paid as they manually mark the order as delivered. You also get to keep the food.

Getting paid by Doordash for canceled orders

As you can see, whether you get paid or not when their is a cancellation with a Doordash order will depend on the situation. Where you are at when the cancellation happens seems to be the main thing. Every situation is different, but as long as you make it to the merchant before the cancellation occurs will guarantee you some pay. I know that $2 is nothing, but I will tell you that there are other on-demand food delivery services that will not give the driver anything. Doordash may not be so bad on this one.