urbanriot I can’t comment on the services themselves as I’ve never used them but we’ve had a few restaurants in our area stop using them due to issues with deliveries. It’s not uncommon to see a sign that they’re no longer offering delivery services.
At least in my experience EVERY issue I’ve ever had with a food delivery service (probably 200 deliveries in the last 3 years, at least once a week, often twice) has been the restaurants fault not fulfilling the order as entered. I’ve yet to have any issues with the actual delivery service themselves.
This sounds to me like the restaurants have sour grapes that they get the money taken away from them when a customer complains their order wasn’t right. 2 Weeks ago we ordered Montana’s by Uber Eats - was supposed to be a half rack of ribs with fries and cole slaw, country fried chicken with green beans and mashed potatoes, a burger with fries and gravy, an order of buffalo wings and a side order of fries. About $100. The driver shows up and drops off the order - 2 bags as expected, stapled and sealed from Montanas. Open up the bags and the entire country fried chicken entree is missing. Everything else is there. That’s a $26 entree. I go into Uber Eats app and report issue with order, item missing, and identify the missing item. They instantly refund me $30 back to my account (the $26 entree plus tax, no refund on tip). Obviously they are going to reduce what they give Montanas as payment on the order too. Obviously the bigger issue was now my wife’s dinner didn’t arrive while the rest of us have our food. No fault of Uber Eats - purely the restaurant screwing up the order. I then called the local Montanas and told them what happened, they put the manager on, explained the situation, he went away for a couple minutes and came back and apologized and said the staff forgot to pack that item and it was still sitting on the counter waiting for packing for take-out.
Had I gone in person to get takeout, I would have noticed the item missing, they would have gone back and grabbed it, put it in my order, and all would have been well. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to deal with that - we had just got home from kids piano recital (where I had sat and placed the order into Uber while we were there for delivery just after we got home) and my wife had to leave to go to an event about an hour after we got home - we were trying to squeeze the meal into a tight window.
Unfortunately my wife ended up having to grab a quick drive thru fast food meal on her way since the restaurant had forgot to pack her food.
I would say probably 1 in 5 food orders we make at least one item is wrong in the order - either missing, wrong item, wrong side, or something else the restaurant did incorrect. Its never the delivery company (be it DD, Uber Eats or Skip The Dishes - we often use all 3). That’s a lot of strikes against the restaurants and a lot of refunds we have to file for.