DoorDash will pay $18 million to resolve Chicago’s federal lawsuit accusing the food-delivery giant of duping diners with buried fees, inflated prices and deceptive practices that ballooned as COVID-19 lockdowns drove the company’s explosive rise, city officials announced Friday.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson unveiled the doordash $18m settlement, which ends a four-year battle over allegations that DoorDash expanded its footprint by misleading consumers, undercutting restaurants and using tips to prop up its own labor costs during the public health emergency.
City: DoorDash Masked Fees, Manipulated Prices, Exploited Pandemic Chaos
According to the city, DoorDash misled customers between 2014 and 2021 by piling on “service fees,” “small order fees,” and a $1.50 “Chicago” fee — all tucked into tax groupings that implied they were government-mandated charges.
The city said DoorDash also obscured the fact that menu prices on its app could exceed those offered directly by restaurants, and dangled discounts that only applied if customers hit certain spending thresholds.
