An Orillia father is frustrated with DoorDash after the company failed to deliver groceries and Easter gifts, which left him without presents for his three children and without food for several days.
Dustin Hackney placed his order with the delivery company on March 28, with the plan to get groceries and give Easter gifts to his children during their planned visit over the holiday weekend.
The order, however, never showed up, even though the company notified him it had been delivered.
“I went out to my door when I got the notification on my phone, and ... there were no groceries there,” Hackney said. “I went to my balcony, I went to the front lobby, I went to the other two floors in the building, checked with neighbours, and no one had seen DoorDash or any groceries.”
He later checked with his building manager, who confirmed, by looking at security camera footage, DoorDash never made the delivery.
“I then contacted DoorDash and told them about this, and they kept giving me the runaround, telling me, ‘Oh, the drivers said they delivered it, so we can’t do anything for you,’” he said.
As Hackney relies on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), which he told Village Media is due to mental health issues, he said the money he used to place the order was all that was available to get groceries and buy Easter gifts for his kids.
“I’m on disability, don’t get much money. Pretty much everything was Easter stuff for my kids, so I had nothing to give them on Easter, which made me feel like a piece of shit as a father,” he said. “I had planned on what to buy … and, also, I ordered the little bit of groceries that I get to order for myself.”
On top of failing to deliver his order, he said, DoorDash billed him twice, and a separate issue with an ODSP payment placed his bank account into a negative balance, which led to him not eating for several days.
In the following days, Hackney said he reached out to DoorDash dozens of times but was unable to get a refund.
He said the refund was denied due to several previous reports from him that the wrong items had been delivered, or had not been delivered, which is generally resolved with a refund for the order.
“I didn’t know that there was a limit, and I’m sorry for being a customer that raises a concern when there’s a concern,” he said.
He also brought the issue to the OPP, who he said contacted DoorDash on his behalf and was similarly unable to resolve the issue — although police did bring food to Hackney in light of his situation.
“This is inhumane. It’s robbery. It’s immoral,” he said. “It’s just really, really shitty of a business to operate like this.”
After being contacted by Village Media this week, DoorDash said it had issued Hackney a refund for his order.
In an emailed statement, a representative said the company was awaiting additional proof of his claim, given previous reports of items going undelivered — a process, it said, is sometimes fraudulently abused by customers.
Although he had not yet been refunded as of Wednesday afternoon, Hackney said he was refunded later that evening.
Despite the refund, Hackney said he plans to file a class-action lawsuit against DoorDash in light of last week’s events, and encouraged others to reach out to him at [email protected]
