A recent fabricated Reddit post claiming to expose fraudulent practices at a major food delivery platform went viral, forcing executives at DoorDash and Uber Eats to publicly deny the allegations, despite the claims being entirely false.
The anonymous post, which claimed to be from a whistleblower developer at a food delivery company, alleged that platforms used tools like a “desperation score” to manipulate driver pay and engaged in other exploitative practices.
The thread garnered more than 87,000 upvotes and tens of millions of views as it spread across Reddit and X.
To lend credibility to the claims, the poster shared an 18-page ‘internal’ document and what appeared to be an Uber Eats employee badge. However, journalist Casey Newton of Platformer discovered that both the badge and documents were AI-generated fabrications.
The original post has since been removed by moderators.
‘This is not DoorDash’
Though no company was specifically named in the allegations, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu quickly took to X to distance his company from the claims. “This is not DoorDash, and I would fire anyone who promoted or tolerated the kind of culture described in this Reddit post,” he wrote.
DoorDash followed up with a detailed blog post addressing the specific allegations point by point. The company emphasised that it does not use a “desperation score” to track drivers’ financial situations or determine pay based on that data.
“This is a horrific term, and an even more horrific concept,” DoorDash stated in the blog post. “We are not tracking how much cash Dashers have and determining pay based on that.”
The company also refuted claims that it refers to drivers as “human assets”, noting that it calls them ‘Dashers’ and that more than eight million people chose to dash in 2024, earning more than $16 billion.
Other debunked claims included allegations of a ‘Driver Benefit Fee’ funding a ‘Policy Defence Centre’, and that priority delivery was a scam.
DoorDash clarified that in some locations it charges a Regulatory Response Fee to cover compliance costs, which is clearly displayed to consumers, and that it has removed more than 80 such fees as regulations have changed.
The company also addressed claims that high-tipping customers led to lower base pay for drivers, stating that base pay is determined solely by time, distance, and the desirability of an order, and that 100% of customer tips go directly to Dashers.
‘Don’t trust everything you read’
Uber Eats also refuted the made-up claims had anything to do with its business model or team culture, with COO Andrew MacDonald keeping the statement short but firm: “I am responsible for Uber Eats. This post is definitively not about us. I suspect it is completely made up. Don’t trust everything you read on the internet.”
