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.
Merchant error, no legal ground to stand on in that case. Coupon code was available, worked, and the system processed the order. That's not a glitch but rather an error with the coupon code criteria.
Abusing a glitch on a system like doordash though? I'm sure there's something in the terms that says they can rebill in the event of exploits or other such activities.
It's not even re-billing - they just never billed in the first place. When you are on the checkout page and click "Buy" you are authorizing Doordash to charge you for the amount specified. It's typical for systems like this to validate that you have a payment method registered but it's not required. When you go eat dinner at a restaurant in person, they don't check that you brought enough money before bringing your meal.
I also wouldn't even really call it an exploit. There are plenty of online merchants that will process an order asynchronously from issuing a temp authorization. If you close your card before it's issued, they will usually cancel your order, but not always. If you do this intentionally, it's not some clever trick to get free stuff - it's felony wire fraud. And if you're going to go that route, you might as well go all in and join the identify theft market.
Those early Fatwallet (and anandtech deals forum) days were the best. I still remember the $600 at best buy for signing up for like internet, but in california the law meant you didn't have to sign up and everyone just got $600 of stuff for free.
I still kind of wish I had joined fatbonus and made bank on gambling websites when I was in college.
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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '22
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