I started off with a promo code -- $100 free. Used it a couple of times and it was convenient. And I enjoyed watching the little car on my screen navigate streets to arrive at my house.
My first red flag was a delivery guy without mask or gloves. That lowered his tip considerably. I’ve since learned that some restaurants now won’t use Postmates for the very same reason. Public safety is paramount.
But how can Postmates monitor that? It’s all freelancers working on their own time. Okay, so there’s a quality control issue. There’s been enough flak from this that the company is supposedly really putting their foot down and insisting their drivers wear gloves and masks. Good luck enforcing that.
For Mother’s Day I placed a rather sizeable order at a restaurant I like to support. I looked at the bill before clicking CONFIRM and it was shockingly higher than I was expecting. Even with “free delivery” and some “$5.00 off offer” the bill seemed way too high. I checked and saw a service charge of $35.00. What the fuck was that?
I called the restaurant. They said, that was all Postmates. If I picked up the order myself that $35.00 would be gone. According to them, Postmates charges the customer a service fee, the restaurant a fee, and takes a percentage of the driver’s tip. And talking to a friend who used to be a driver for Postmates, I was told they jack up the service fee at peak hours (as does Uber – try getting an Uber from JFK into NYC at 5:00 pm and see what you pay).
I want to know what “free delivery” means when I’m charged $35.00? Also, assuming the driver is wearing gloves and a mask, I tip at least 20% and sometimes more because those people are working their asses off for very little, providing a great service during the pandemic. So if I have a bill of say $200 and have to pay a service charge and tip, that’s an additional $75.00. That's INSANE!
My takeaway: They better send me a lot of those $100 promo cards or say goodbye to Postmates.
Personally, I'm more comfortable driving to a local restaurant and picking up my own food (while wearing a mask and gloves) than I would be having a stranger deliver it. I feel that this cuts down substantially on the number of people handling my food orders.
ReplyDeleteDelivery services provide the illusion of safety simply because you don't see what's going on behind the scenes. Nobody wants to see how the sausage gets made....
I’m one of those Postmates drivers. I wear gloves and a mask and a coffee filter under my mask.
DeleteTips, let’s talk tips... out of 5 deliveries I may get 2 tips and it’s barely 5.00. I’m working my as off for what? A paycheck barely ! If u were at restaurant and I was a waitress everyone would tip me, why can’t I get a tip now To Save My Life!
Colleen
I know Uber/UberEats is now requiring drivers to take a picture of themselves wearing a mask before they start their shift (ride, pickup, etc.). Whether they keep the mask on after they take the picture of themselves, of course, is probably indeterminate.
ReplyDeleteI drive for Uber eats, I've never had to take a picture of myself wearing a mask. I do anyway because of the obvious safety reasons. I don't see why all delivery drivers don't wear masks, you get better tips.
DeleteI drive Uber eats in CA and I went to start working yesterday and was required to take a picture of myself wearing a mask
DeleteFrom what I understand, they also put restaurants on their list without the restaurant's permission, and aren't very quick to refund when they aren't able to get the things that are ordered.
ReplyDeleteDitto
ReplyDeleteAFAICS, all these companies that intermediate between you and someone who used to be an independent - taxi driver, restaurant, delivery guy, plumber, window cleaner - are purely predatory. The free $100 introductory offer means somewhere some venture capitalist is paying you to adopt the system at those former independents' expense, and hopes to make it back by owning the market entirely. It's convenience now, societal cost later.
ReplyDeletewg
Have you seen this story?
ReplyDeletehttps://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage
food delivery is not making money for anybody, and launching new delivery services can lead to weird results...
Lifehacker recently did a recent piece about how most of those food-delivery-facilitating sites and apps and services involve incredibly high fees and other dodgy practices. They recommend, if it's an option, ordering directly from the restaurant so that buyers and restaurants can avoid incurring those fees.
ReplyDeleteI still have to drive 4-5 times a week for business (though working from home), so once a week I sanitize the inside of my car. Everything I could conceivably touch inside the car gets hit with Clorox wipes. It makes driving so liberating! Just remember that if you touch anything outside the car, like restaurant pick-ups or bank drive-through sucky tubes, wipe or gel appropriately.
ReplyDeleteGrub Hub does the same thing. If you look at menu of a restaurant on GrubHub and compare it to the one at the actual restaurant, they mark it up 20%. Fork those guys.
ReplyDeleteAlthough to be fair we have been sold the idea that everything should be free on the internet so if a delivery service was honest and said the deliver fee is say 20 percent of the bill we would be outraged. We consumers do want it both ways.
Maybe a Friday question? I just say the Jerry Seinfeld special on Netflix and I was surprised how stilted Jerry was in his delivery. He really seemed to be trying too hard. The jokes were OK but he seemed to be forcing it all . Did you notice that?
ReplyDeleteThey may be convenient, but that convenience comes at a price especially when dealing with vultures. I have a favorite restaurant here where I live and I call them personally to order then I drive to pick it up. No expensive and greedy intermediary
ReplyDeleteThat's what you get for wanting to eat.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, it shouldn't be too much longer before we are all living like "The Jetsons."
That is, soon a drone or autonomous vehicle with some sort of robot (TAKE THAT $15 an hour minimum wage!) will deliver your order quickly, efficiently and most importantly sanitarily.
And don't worry about having to handle filthy lucre. You'll pay with that chip that's implanted somewhere in your body.
It's a great time to be alive, isn't it?
M.B.
Yup. We tried Postmates over the weekend -- super excited for some local Mexican food. Our order ended up being almost $100 with about $30 of that being in service charges. We immediately deleted the app and said never again!
ReplyDeleteI tried to order flowers from FTD for Mothers Day. When it was time to pay they'd added a $30 delivery fee on a $55 bouquet. I didn't make the purchase.
ReplyDeleteFortunately I live closeby most of my favorite haunts. Even without a car I'll just call in an order and just pick it up myself -- my walking distance stats have gone through the roof since getting furloughed.
ReplyDeleteEliminate the middleman, tips go direct to the restaurant.
Postmates is the worst of all of the food-delivery services. Last year, my wife ordered dinner via Postmates. The woman who delivered the order brought the wrong order. She told my wife that she would head right back to the restaurant to pick up the correct food. Except that she DIDN'T. We never saw her again.
ReplyDeleteWe called the restaurant, and we were told that she never came back. I contacted Postmates via Twitter for an explanation as to why this woman never returned, and to find out what Postmates was going to do about it. Postmates replied to my Twitter post, only to tell me that my wife would have to contact them via her account (for some reason we ended up having our own accounts on our own phones). So, my wife contacted Postmates. But... surprise, surprise, no response. She tried again... and again, nothing. Even *I* tried again via Twitter. Except Postmates was now ignoring me, too.
Of course, we've never used Postmates again.
I hear ya, Colleen, and like I said, I tip 20%. The tip should be mandatory, not the service fee.
ReplyDeleteI always tip a delivery driver at least 20%, and sometimes 25%, if it's a large order. It's just the right thing to do. Two local pizza places that both have very good food, also have
ReplyDeletereasonable delivery charges.
Grubhub? The last time I went to order something through them, a food order of $12 came to a total of $27.50 with tax, delivery fee, and tip. That's just unacceptable to me. And so, even though it was raining, I walked to the restaurant and back.
To add to the possible "Friday Question" above, and I'm gonna be more direct - Seinfeld's Netflix special was awful. When did he turn into such an elitist asshole? The whole rant about "you people" with "your" cell phone addictions. Like he doesn't use one? And his rant about expensive movie theater concessions and thus being outraged at the suggestion to pick up your own trash - as a former Disney World employee who regularly had to slop out 2,300 seat theaters after every show, fuck you Jerry.
ReplyDeletePostmates charged my debit card $53.87 for a couple of dinners. Not a bad amount, but I never ordered the dinners. Couldn’t get them on the phone, had to communicate the fraudulent charge via the Postmate website. They were initially snippy and distrustful until I offered to call the police. They finally admitted that my debit card had been compromised and my money would be refunded.
ReplyDeleteThe dinners were delivered to someone in a town 50 miles away. Either that person or the delivery people stole or bought my card number. Or someone at Postmates was a contributor.
Thank you to the majority of wonderful people working hard, doing an honest job. Shame on Postmates for not being better employers.
The experience was creepy. I still may call the police.