DoorDash's Wage Scam Exposed - Forced to Write $17M Check After Brazenly Scamming Tips…

DoorDash just became the epitome of scamming the gig economy—you know, where you get to be your own boss (except when you’re not), and tips go straight to workers (except they don’t). 

In short, DoorDash just got slapped with a $16.75 million bill for doing what every shady food delivery app secretly dreams of: using customer tips to subsidize worker wages instead of actually paying drivers what they were owed. Turns out, between May 2017 and September 2019, DoorDash was playing a ponzi like shell game with tips—one that New York Attorney General Letitia James called “fundamentally unfair.” She’s being polite.

For more context, here’s how the scam pay-model worked: DoorDash would promise drivers a minimum guaranteed payout per delivery. But instead of paying that amount themselves, they’d subtract whatever tips the customer left from what they owed the driver. Meaning if a Dasher was guaranteed $10 for a delivery and the customer tipped $3, DoorDash only had to pay $7 out of pocket. If a customer tipped generously—let’s say $12 on a $10 minimum—DoorDash would only contribute the bare minimum $1, leaving the Dasher with $12 total instead of the $22 they should have gotten.

(Source: AP) 

The crazy part? Customers had no friggin’ clue. They thought they were tipping to help delivery drivers, not to let a multi-billion-dollar company weasel its way out of paying fair wages. Meaning, this wasn’t some gray-area technicality on DoorDash’s part—it was straight up deception. 

And now, after years of pretending they did nothing wrong, DoorDash is writing a fat check to make it all go away. Of course, they are taking a page out of Trump’s three golden rules, and not actually admitting fault. Instead, they’re giving us the same tired PR B.S. about how they’re just happy to “resolve this years-old matter” and continue offering “flexible earning opportunities.”

(Source: Giphy) 

So now that they’re only sorry for getting caught, what’s actually changing (if anything)? Well, as part of the settlement, DoorDash can’t pull this stunt again. The company is now required to: Pay tips in full—without using them to offset guaranteed wages. Actually disclose pay policies to both customers and workers (what a concept). And finally, maintain a pay model that ensures tips are extra money, not a wage subsidy.

The only catch to this deal is that DoorDash already changed its pay model in 2019, so this settlement is basically just paying to sweep the old mess under the rug. Now backing up a bit, is $17 million a massive slap in the face for DoorDash. Hell nah. DoorDash raked in $2.3 billion in revenue last quarter—so this is just a minor cost of doing business for them. They’ll pay up, pretend they’ve learned their lesson, and keep running whatever new hustle they’ve cooked up behind the scenes.

(Source: Fox Business) 

What’s more is that DoorDash isn’t the only one pulling shady sh^t like this. The entire gig economy is built on exploiting workers while pretending it’s offering them “freedom”. Uber, Instacart, Grubhub—they’re all playing some version of the same game, tweaking pay structures and algorithmic manipulation to squeeze every possible cent out of their workforce while keeping regulators off their backs.

So yeah, New York Dashers are getting some of their stolen money back. But if you think this is some kind of massive win for workers, you’re delusional. The system is still rigged. The only real lesson here is that if you’re a gig worker, you’re expendable, and if you’re a customer, you better start handing over tips in cash—because otherwise, you’re just funding corporate wage theft. 

(Source: Giphy) 

For now, unless you’re an investor, it’s kind of satisfying seeing a -11.39% plunge in shares over the past five days. But when DoorDash’s stock is up 46.12% over the last six-months, it’s clear investors don’t give a hoot about a $17 million settlement. In the meantime though, keep your eyes on these gig-stocks and place your bets accordingly, friends. As always, stay safe and stay frosty! Until next time…

P.S. My buddy Jared is sharp as hell—probably one of the smartest guys I know. But when it comes to investing? An absolute clown. Why? Because he doesn’t grasp the one thing that separates winners from losers in the market: information. And not just any information—I’m talking about the kind of intel that Wall Street hoards like the FBI hoards Hunter Biden's laptop—because the second retail traders get their hands on it, their edge starts to disappear.

Moral of the story here? Don’t be a Jared. Get access to the real market-moving data, the stuff hidden behind paywalls and institutional gatekeeping by joining Stocks.News premium. At the end of the day, the market isn’t playing fair—so why should you? 

Stocks.News holds positions in Uber as mentioned in the article.