To expect Deliveroo not to charge me for missing and damaged items?

[Fumingcustomer]

So I have had a repeat problem with Deliveroo - who I am signed up to for a monthly fee for unlimited free deliveries - delivering orders minus some of the items (sometimes more than half the items) and still charging me for them.

In the past, I have had to report this on their app - which usually says it can't offer me a refund. I then call up and speak to a human being in customer services, which is a faff, but usually I have then got a credit to my account for the missing items (I have learnt not to ask for a refund as that never turns up in my account).

Today, they surpassed themselves by delivering an order missing 6 out of 21 items, and with a further item damaged - and ARE REFUSING TO GIVE ME ANY SORT OF CREDIT OR REFUND! 😡

So in effect, Deliveroo have stolen the cost of these 7 items (£13.30 - it was a Morrisons delivery) and are now refusing to give the money back!!! 😡😡😡

Surely this cannot be legal??!

Looking at Twitter it looks like I'm not alone in this as I seem to be far from the only customer Deliveroo have fleeced in this way - have cancelled my monthly delivery charge, as I've had enough of this, and have raised it with my credit card company as well. Just shocked really that as we head into a recession where companies are going to be struggling for customers, that companies think stealing from loyal customers makes good business sense!! (I have never had this issue with either Uber Eats or Just Eat...)

Interested to hear from other Mumsnetters who have had similar experiences with Deliveroo, or who have any suggestions on how to get my money back!!

Interesting. You must have a lovely Deliveroo service where you live! All I can say is where I am, I have literally never had bags numbered when delivered by Deliveroo (or to be fair, any of its competitors either).

That would be a great idea - but isn't something that happens where I live.

Convenience.

But have learnt my lesson - being able to have small amounts of groceries delivered for free is only convenient IF the groceries actually turn up and I don't have to spend ages chasing missing items.

So I have unsubscribed from the monthly charge and will not be using Deliveroo in future.

I still want my missing items refunded however.

It seems odd for Morrisons to say that it’s nothing to do with them, though I agree that Deliveroo are who you have a contract with. I use Deliveroo for Waitrose stuff occasionally, if I’m missing something, and the orders seem to be picked and packed by Waitrose staff. Which make sense, as when you order a takeaway the restaurant cooks the food. Deliveroo don’t send a random into their kitchen!

If somethings not available in Waitrose I get an email / app message with missing items, which they cancel and credit back. So, while Deliveroo are responsible, the cause is probably inadequate training / following of process by the Morrisons staff picking the order and who aren’t cancelling unavailable items.

I am unclear who packs what - according to the Morrisons customer service guy, the Deliveroo driver is the one who packs the order, not Morrisons staff - although agree this seems unlikely (and certainly with restaurants, it is not the Deliveroo driver who prepares the order and puts it in a bag for the customer!).

However, it is immaterial - my contract is with Deliveroo, not Morrisons - in much the same way as if I ordered an item from Amazon, I wouldn't take up an issue with non-delivery of items with the company who made the item/s, I wouldn't expect to do this with Morrisons either.

It's possible it is the Deliveroo driver who actually collects the items together for grocery orders, though - this would explain the worst example of delivery from Deliveroo I had recently, where I ordered what should have been about 3 bags of groceries, and the driver turned up with only 1 small bag. I looked and none of it was my stuff - so I challenged the Deliveroo driver. She literally ran away, saying she didn't speak English!! On that occasion, I did get my money back. I assumed at the time that the Deliveroo driver had been given the wrong bag by the store - but looking back, maybe she was just given a receipt and expected to collect items, which given she clearly didn't speak a word of English (clearly didn't understand that I was saying this was not my order) is not something she would have been able to do, as she would no way have been able to identify what items she was supposed to be finding!

Deliveroo's systems are clearly very poor - I've flagged this before and they don't appear to have taken any action to address it with the store (IF it is the store's fault). I never have these issues with Uber Eats or Just Eat, btw.

The deliveroo driver is not driving to the store, parking, going in and getting a basket and picking your order off the shelves. It's the supermarket staff who do it. They just deliver it. As you said yourself, the clue is in the name, they're a delivery firm. They don't cook takeaways and they don't pick shopping.

The comparison with Amazon isn't valid because they both pack your order and deliver it. A more valid comparison would be M&S who use an external delivery service. If your order arrived in a sealed bag but was missing items, you would contact M&S, not UPS or Hermes or whoever had delivered it because the issue would be at the packing end not the delivery end.

I do agree that Deliveroo should be chasing up your local Morrisons store though!

Have you tried using Deliveroo to deliver from another supermarket and if so, did you have the same issue?

Deliveroo pay peanuts compared to UberEats and JustEat (they pay the most), so you will find they attract those who may struggle elsewhere.

It is also the drivers who choose and accept the jobs - so despite not speaking any English that lady was not just given your job, she chose to do it despite not having the necessary skills because she’s going to get paid anyway.

Interesting to hear they pay the least. That would figure - the customer service and calibre of driver/rider is definitely worse.

No-one should be in a delivery job if they can't at least understand 'This is not my order! You have given me someone else's food!'

Right but it’s not a job as in your usual job - it’s a case of just signing up and doing it.

That’s why you tend to get people who struggle with English or getting a job in general, because they just need a bike or a car and they’re good to go.

No, the comparison isn't with M&S. Morrisons have their own delivery service - that's the equivalent to M&S's delivery service.

I don't have a contract with Morrisons, any more than I have a contact with any of the individual restaurants I can order food through from Deliveroo. Deliveroo don't supply any numbers to contact Morrisons directly and when I googled Morrisons customer service they were very explicit that Deliveroo orders were nothing to do with them and I couldn't speak to anyone directly in the store about it either.

I agree it sounds unlikely that the Deliveroo driver would pick the items themselves rather than the store - but Morrisons customer services are adamant this is the case.

Would be fascinated to hear from anyone who actually works for Deliveroo (or has a family member who does) who could verify it one way or the other!

I refuse to use Deliveroo any more. Literally every single order I’ve ever placed with them has taken far longer than even the longest estimate. The food is always cold. There’s often something missing. More often than not the driver is dropping food off somewhere else ‘on the way’ (but it’s never even vaguely on the way - it is sometimes driving to another town in the opposite direction before doubling back to come into the city and drive to my house). There’s never any useful communication when something goes wrong. Customer services are not in the least but helpful.

It doesn’t matter if they are ‘acting as the agent’. Their system is shit. And it means the service is always shit.

I used to order from Deliveroo a lot - probably once a day, occasionally twice, for about nine months. I would say one in every 5 or 6 orders had an issue, usually just a missing or wrong item, and the app would always either refund or credit me without any hassle whatsoever. I never had to ring up, it’s just tick a couple of boxes and done. I guess because of the volume of orders placed their algorithm didn’t think my issues where fraudulent (both in terms of frequency and amount, eg a £2 refund out of a £40 Waitrose order).

Anyway, I had an order with some minor issue and this time, they refused the refund. I rang, they said “too many refunds”, not eligible (?) for them anymore. So I have never used them again after that. I let that refusal go, again it was small, because if they won’t provide the refunds when things go wrong (which happens pretty regularly) then it’s too much of a risk for me. It sounds to me from your OP that the algorithm has decided your refund requests are dodgy for whatever reason, and since they’re a private company all you can do really is vote with your feet.

In the case of supermarket orders, OP, the drivers pick and bag the items themselves.

It is nothing to do with the supermarket - as they have stated they do have their own delivery service and do not work through delivery partners on that.

However, for restaurants and food delivery, the drivers just collect and deliver.

No, the comparison isn't with M&S. Morrisons have their own delivery service - that's the equivalent to M&S's delivery service.

No, it isn't.

Morrisons own delivery service is comparable to Amazon i.e. they pick and deliver. Same as Tesco or Asda or Argos.

M&S pick, but don't deliver. Same as Next. Or H&M. Or a million other companies that pack orders and use an external company to deliver the goods. In this case you can't blame the delivery service if your bags have been incorrectly packed. If you ordered 5 bras from M&S, the parcel is delivered by Royal Mail, sealed. But only three bras in there! Do you call M&S or Royal Mail?

If Morrisons pack the bags, then the problem is at their end.

Incorrect. The contract is with the delivery service.

The delivery partner - in this case Deliveroo - takes the money. Even if Morrisons did pack the bags (and they don’t), they would not be able to refund OP because the contract is with Deliveroo.

Interesting to hear it's not just me. Yes, I assume the 'agorithm said no'. But that's unacceptable. The algorithm is faulty if it can't learn from previous complaints and resolve the underlying issue. It's not acceptable for the company to blame the customer for what is their own poor company systems/training/delivery driver vetting and then steal the customer's money.

I've been using Deliveroo heavily since the start of lockdown - a half-decent algorithm would spot that I have virtually never complained about deliveries from restaurants - where the restaurant packs the order and the Deliveroo driver just delivers it. Because it's incredibly rare for any items to be missing.

But I have frequently had to complain about items missing from supermarket deliveries.

What's worse is that the cheeky barstewards at Deliveroo encourage me to leave poor reviews for Morrisons - when actually it appears it is their own Deliveroo drivers who are to blame for the missing items! What a nerve!

And yup, absolutely voting with my feet.

And advise others to do likewise.

Deliveroo riders do not pick or pack orders from anywhere. Whether it is coop or Morrisons or whatever the rider goes in, gives the order number, and is handed bags that are already packed and ready to go. So the error with missing items (unless the rider has been theiving from the bag-which is why it's usually tied or sealed bags handed over), the error there is with the store. The riders literally just take the goods from point A to point B.
However your contract is with deliveroo and they are the ones who should be refunding you. (SHOULD be).
You should absolutely be refunded for missing items and it's shocking you haven't been.

The issue is there are too many immoral people out there who often claim they never received an item in order to get a refund. So because you’ve claimed in the past, they start to doubt you.

It’s frustrating as around 50% of my orders have something wrong with it but whether or not I complain depends on how important it is, because I know they will refuse a refund eventually if I complain every time.

They need a system to actually determine the truth. Because it’s not acceptable for there to always or almost always be an issue (or several) and to respond to that by preventing customers from asking for refunds when they have received and order of cold food, an hour after the least optimistic delivery time given (which may already have been 90 minutes from ordering), where items they’ve paid for are missing.

If the restaurants/shops are at fault, Deliveroo need mechanisms to improve this. If the problem is with the drivers/riders, they need to be able to address that too. Blaming the customers and treating them as the problem is a good way to go from merely loss making to out of business.

Some of the things are very obviously deliveroo’s fault. A system that lets drivers pick up multiple deliveries at once but doesn’t ensure they’re actually ‘on the way’ is not ok. Particularly one that doesn’t coordinate the cooking of those orders - so the first order prepared sits getting cold while the driver waits in the restaurant as they prepare the other one. Obviously the drivers are going to try to maximise their delivery numbers. But this system inevitably leads to poor outcomes for customers.

I think there are several fundamental problems with their business model.