Doordash gives all of us dashers a red card that we may need to use at some merchants. When I first started dashing many years ago, the red card seemed to be used much more than it is used these days. This has to do with Doordash doing a very good job of partnering with many of the merchants out there. Sure, we still need to use our red card every once in a while, but trust me when I say that it is not used nearly as much as it used to be.
With all of that said, it is still vital to always have your red card with you. Without it, you would not be able to pay for customer's orders at popular merchants like Jack-In-The-Box or Wendy's. Of course, these are not the only places that you may need to use your red card, but they are two of the most popular merchants.
Besides all of that, you will not be able to dash without having your red card registered with your Doordash account. I once lost my red card, and instead of reporting it lost right away, I would just deny any call that I knew would require the red card. I did this because I knew that if I reported it lost, I would not be able to dash until my new card came in the mail. I couldn't do that because I had bills to pay the upcoming week.
When your Doordash red card don't work
Those of us that have dashed long enough have all ran in to the problem of our red card getting declined. There are times when it is easy to figure out the reason why, but there are other times when we are baffled. It can be really annoying when the red card is declined, but most of the time the fix is pretty simple.
The obvious reason why your Doordash red card will not work
I am first going to talk about when it is easy to figure out why the red card is declined. I am going to use an example of a Chinese restaurant that I picked up from about five times. This merchant was in what was my regular region at that time which was about two years ago. Out of all the five times that I went there to pick up, the red card was declined five times. The reason that the red card was declined every time was because the total that Doordash charged the customer on the app was about 50 percent of what the total at the restaurant was.
For example, it would show on the Doordash app that the customer was charged about $30 for their food. In reality, the total bill of the food came out to around $60. It is very obvious here why the Doordash red card was being declined. I didn't know the full situation or relationship here with the restaurant and Doordash, all I knew is that every time I was waiting for the food there, I would already be on the wait list to contact a Doordash customer representative. Always remember that time is money! Back then, at that time, you would be like number #100 on the wait list and have to wait like 15 minutes before a Doordash customer rep would connect with you. All I was doing was getting a head start because I knew that the red card was going to decline when it came time to pay!
Certainly Doordash did not have their prices up to date with this Chinese restaurant. The Doordash customers that were ordering from this restaurant must have been getting a hell of a deal on their food. One time, during one of my visits to this merchant, the Doordash rep that I was chatting with actually seemed to be insinuating that I added food for myself. The rep didn't directly say it, but I knew what he was hinting. He couldn't understand why there was such a big difference between the total in the Doordash app and the total that the merchant had. I told this Doordash rep that he should call the merchant if he didn't believe me, and sure enough he did just that. I was standing right there when the lady at the restaurant told him the price of the bill. He got back to me on the chat and that was that.
Always remember that when there is a huge difference in the app price of the food and the actual price at the merchant that there is a good chance that the Doordash red card will decline. Also keep in mind though that a few dollar difference is not going to make a difference. For example, if the price on the Doordash app is $20.10 and the total of the food at the restaurant is $22.50, you will be okay. The red card is not going to get denied because of a few dollar difference.
When you have no idea why your Doordash red card is not working
There are times when your Doordash red card will not work for no apparent reason. It will have nothing to do with the total price of the items. There have been times when the total price of the customer's food is cheaper than what the price on the Doordash app says, and the red card will still get declined.
In situations like this, the only thing that makes sense to me is that not enough money got loaded on to the red card for some reason. Things happen every once in a while that make no sense at all, and we just have to live with that.
What to do when your Doordash red card is declined
Luckily for us Doordash makes it real simple for us when we run in to a red card problem. All we have to do is contact Doordash and let them know that we have a red card issue, and they will generally solve the problem for us so that we can pay the merchant and be on our way. The Doordash reps have the ability to add money on to our red cards, and they will do just that when our red card isn't working.
I have yet to ever run in to a situation when the Doordash rep could not help me out. Every time I have a red card issue, Doordash has solved the problem. I would also like to add that red card problems are rare these days. Problems with the red card very rarely happen compared to just a couple of years ago.
The worst situation to be in when your red card declines
This has only happened to me a few times, but it is worth noting here. The worst situation to me for your red card not to work is when you are in a long and busy drive-thru late at night when the lobby of the merchant is closed. While at the window, the worker tells you that your card has been declined. You now have to contact Doordash, but that is going to take some time, and you cannot hold up the drive-thru line for 10 minutes while you are contacting Doordash.
You will have to tell the workers at the merchant that you are going to get out the line, but that you are going to come back up to the window to pay. So you get out the line and take care of everything with the Doordash rep. The card is now going to work, but now you have to walk up to the drive-thru window while some weirdos are in their vehicle there at the drive-thru window thinking that you are the weirdo. In my opinion it is best to let the second car in line know your situation. They will most likely be cool with you walking up the window in front of them. If you just crowd right in to the window while the first car in line is sitting there at the drive-thru it can be a weird situation.
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