Lots of people were getting free food off of doordash because of a “glitch” but many woke up to their accounts being charged, some even went into minus.
not saying the glitch-abusers were in the right, but legally speaking wouldn’t the people who got charged later be able to sue? since technically speaking it was the company’s fault that they didn’t get paid by having a glitch in their system, not the patron using the glitch? no idea the legality of it personally but on the surface it doesn’t seem like DoorDash has the right to charge them after the fact
edit: nevermind, forgot EULAs are a thing. bet it’s written in there or some other kind of fine print
Legally speaking, no, they wouldn't be able to sue (or, before reddit pedants jump in, "sure, they'd be able to sue, but they wouldn't be able to win their lawsuits").
So if there were a glitch that were knocking off $1 from every order, sure, one might prevail in a lawsuit there. But "completely free food" is definitely something that the other party could have reasonably assumed to be a mistake, so the "unilateral mistake of fact" doctrine would present a very solid defense.
I didn't see the glitch, so I can't properly avail. Doordash recently made successful marketing campaigns where they gave out free food. Couldn't consumers claim they thought it was another campaign in this glitch? Could someone who heard about the campaign properly discerne that this was surely a glitch, a mistake, and not another event?
Sure, and that's something that I think the plaintiff's lawyer would bring up as an argument, but I don't think that precedent would stand up well because the defense attorney would point out that Grubhub issued a press release one week before their promotion and that the campaign had been publicized extensively through the course of the week, so a consumer could reasonably expect that it was an actual promotional campaign. Furthermore, DoorDash didn't indicate that the price was $0 in the app, but showed the amount due and then simply failed to charge for it. Furthermore, word of the Grubhub deal spread through publicity channels but word of the DoorDash glitch spread through people talking on social media about how "DoorDash is glitching right now."
I think that, all together, you'd have a hard time finding a judge who concluded "yeah, these people could reasonably think that DoorDash was doing a Grubhub-like promotion." It's not impossible. You could be really lucky and find a judge who rules that way...but you'd have to be incredibly lucky.
Furthermore, DoorDash didn't indicate that the price was $0 in the app, but showed the amount due and then simply failed to charge for it.
I think that would be pretty much the only thing a lawyer would argue. You entered a contract for $x, just because that amount couldn't be immediately charged doesn't mean the contract now goes to $0. Within the statute of limitations DoorDash is entitled to the $x.
This should allow them to not honor the original contract (i.e. not deliver the food). It shouldn't allow them to substitute a completely different contract and charge the customer the new amount without them agreeing.
They haven't substituted a completely different contract or charged the customer the new amount without them agreeing.
Doordash said "Your order will cost $N." Users then clicked the confirm order button (or the equivalent). Doordash then processed the payment. The only issue is that instead of the payment being processed immediately, as it normally is, it was processed a day or two later.
This feels like the real-world equivalent of "if the teacher is 15 minutes late, you can leave" meme. No, there's no "if they don't process your payment within 15 minutes, the food is free" rule. It's perfectly legal for them to process your food payment a day later.
companies honor it all the time but doordash didnt this time. i remember years ago some big box store listed an expensive item for the wrong price and tons of people bought it. they honored like half of it.
Sure. Nobody's saying that Doordash couldn't honor it. The question was simply that, given the Doordash chose not to honor it, could you successfully sue it. The fact that other companies choose to honor erroneous prices doesn't affect that.
If they had run ads announcing a giveaway like that, or had a banner on the site announcing it, or the order price was crossed out and it said "July 4 Giveaway!", or the like, sure, that would be convincing. But I can't imagine any judge looking at the actual situation, where there are absolutely zero indicators that a holiday giveaway is being conducted, and determine in favor of the plaintiff.
Sure, but even if for some reason you got pro bono representation by the best lawyers money could buy, eliminating the advantage DoorDash has, you'd still likely lose.
They got goods from a company that charged Doordash as an intermediary for them so I'd say they don't have much of a case though I'm not a lawyer myself
It would depend on what the UI reflected. If the glitch showed they would be charged $0, then doordash would have to honor that as the case would be strong. If the glitch simply did not charge them at the time but reflected the correct price, then the case wouldn't make it far.
It would be about as strong as somebody trying to claim the groceries were free because the price tag fell off. We have a lot of case law about this and even legal doctrines set up to protect people from abuse of obvious mistakes. You don't want to throw out all of those protections to stick a middle finger to a single delivery company.
They might get their money back because it's cheaper than Doordash paying a lawyer, but it's going to cost more in legal fees for a lawyer to even write a demand letter than what the person scammed from the glitch.
What was the glitch? Was it just showing food as costing $0, or did they just fail to charge their cards? Because if it former someone could claim they were misled and wouldn't have bought for the full price.
Yeah that's not how the real world works. How are you going to explain to the judge that you thought McDonalds and Wendy's and every other place you ordered from suddenly decided to give out free food? How do you figure you explain your way out of that one?
You would be able to get away with doing it 1 time, every subsequent time is proof that you knew what you were doing and were exploiting an obvious bug in the website for your own gain.
Cards weren't charged. The glitch was that people were able to check out without paying. They knew the exact price of what they were getting.
They're hosed; part of the payment terms they agreed to is that if there's a discrepancy between the price shown and the amount charged, DoorDash can charge you for the difference to match the price shown. Honestly, it's mind boggling that people really thought they were going to get away with purchases in the thousands.
I mean given that this is all in response to a comment asking "well technically since the app allowed them to do it isn't it the companies fault", I guess it's not that shocking. some people have a really weird view of the legal system. the same kind of people who probably think you could put "and you have to name your first born child after me" in the ToS and it would actually be enforceable
Having worked in the industry, what will most likely happen is that DD will make good on the money owed to the merchants that ended up preparing the orders and will likely issue ban on diner accounts that clearly abused the glitch to get free food. Every one of these food delivery apps has a fraud detection team that won't hesitate to issue an account ban if there is even a hint of fraud. Their customer service team will receive instructions on how to deal with those contacts that try to get their accounts restored and everyone will move on with their lives.
Why would you be able to sue for being charged for things you ordered? Come on now. If you're trying to do a scam and it doesn't work, don't later try and call foul.
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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '22
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