Doordash Deactivation in Australia: Top Reasons, How to Appeals and Get Reactivated

Doordash is a new player in Australia’s food delivery industry which was launched in September 2019. In the beginning, many people were pessimistic that the US-based company could develop well in the Australian market. However, this is quickly denied with the increasing number of users of this platform year after year. This growth is in line with the expansion that has been carried out by the company which currently has reached all states and territories, from Darwin to Hobart.

Doordash’s growth in the country is also inseparable from the role of its delivery partners who are loyal to driving for this platform even though it is not as busy as other mainstream platforms, especially in the early years of their appearance. Based on our observations around the web, most of the drivers are quite satisfied with the pay. The platform may not always provide better pay regularly, but most of them are still quite worth it for most drivers.

These days Doordash has become the choice for many delivery drivers who want to earn more. Given that the platform is suitable when used to deliver with more than one app simultaneously, be it with Uber Eats, Menulog, Deliveroo or others.

As a company that provides food delivery services in Australia, Doordash certainly wants its customers to be happy choosing their platform. On-time delivery with good foods condition is one of the factors that are expected, to maintain the quality of their services and customer trust in the company.

To achieve this goal, the company has implemented several policies in accordance with the agreement between the company and the drivers who work as an independent contractors, including those related to customer satisfaction. If the drivers don’t respect the agreement, their Doordash driver account could be deactivated.

Top Doordash Deactivation Reasons

There are many ways to get deactivated by Doordash in Australia. To avoid this from happening to your driver account, here we collect some common reasons that cause a Dasher to lose access to the app.

1. Low Completion Rate
   As you know this is the percentage of most recent completed (100) deliveries. When drivers accepted a delivery opportunity they must complete it to keep the rate high. Customer initiated cancellation will count as completed delivery, but the completion rate will decrease when the driver unassigns an accepted order.

   Actually, to keep the completion rate high, the key is only one, don’t accept orders if you are not happy with the delivery pay or the other factors. However, some situations can lower the rate, even though it’s not the driver’s fault. For example, arriving at a closed restaurant and another driver takes your order from a restaurant which makes you have to unassign.

   

   Completion Rate

   As a Doordash driver in Australia, you only need to maintain a 70% completion rate to keep driving on the platform. Not too difficult, including for those who are driving for multiple delivery apps simultaneously.

2. Low Customer Rating
   Dasher in the country needs to maintain this kind of rating above 4.2 to avoid account deactivation. Most drivers have no difficulty retaining the customer rating because this rating is only determined by delivery experience, not the food. So if the food arrives cold or missing items in the order, it will not affect this rating.
   

   Customer Ratings

   Another approach that might help is to always try to get in touch with customers, especially via text messages. For example, tell them if the restaurant takes extra time to prepare food or let them know if you are minutes away from the customer location so they are ready to take the food.

3. Late Delivery
   To provide the best experience to its consumers, Doordash must be able to ensure that they know when their order will arrive. To meet the expectations of its customers, drivers are expected to be able to accomplish deliveries in a safe and timely fashion, per the Independent Contractor Agreement. A couple of late delivery may not be a problem, but if it happens frequently it might lead to deactivation.

   Information about driver performance about late delivery can be found in ‘On time or early rating’ in the app. Those ratings show how often you arrived late to the merchant and/or to the customer. The lower the rating means the more often you arrived late. However, those ratings will not be used for deactivations and it’s only for reference.

   

   On time or early Rate

   There is no official information on how long delays can be tolerated. However, many advise they should not come for pickup or arrive at the customer’s address no later than 15-20 minutes from the time shown in the app.

   This platform uses Google maps to calculate reasonable and safe travel times for each delivery should take. But don’t worry, any factors outside of a Dasher’s control will not be a factor in these deactivations, including additional wait time at the restaurant and inevitably other delays.

4. Order Never Arrived
   This problem often occurs when the driver marks a delivery as complete but the customer states that they did not receive it, so they report it to Doordash. Drivers will be notified about this via email and inside the Ratings menu called “Contract Violations”.

   This circumstance commonly happens on “hand it to me” orders but the customer is unavailable. To avoid reports like this, it is recommended that you take three appropriate steps before complete the delivery. The first step is to make attempt to contact the customer twice through the app, wait for the recommended time, and lastly leave the order in the safe place and submit a photo with a description showing where you put the order.

   

   Order Never Arrived Report

   One or two contract violations like this might not immediately lead to account deactivation. However, an incident like this without a resolution will result in the loss of your access to the platform. Learn more about how to deal with customer reports like this on our other post.

5. Keeping the Ecosystem Safe and Secure
   Doordash desires to create a safe and secure environment for its platform. Drivers feel safe when doing deliveries, merchants feel comfortable working with their platform and customers never need to be worried about their orders. Creating an unsafe environment for merchants or consumers on the platform is a strong reason for immediate driver deactivation.

   Some of the following behaviours, but not limited to, could lead into account deactivation:

   • Physical or verbal assault of a merchant, consumer or any other person.
   • Discrimination and harassment directed to merchants, customers or another Dasher.
   • Unsafe driving di semua kendaraan baik itu car, bike or scooter.
   • Failure to pass background check renewal.
6. Abusing the Platform
   A driver should use the app honestly and with integrity, Dasher who is caught abusing Doordash services or take part in fraud will be terminated from being able to access the app. The following are examples of abuse and fraud, but not limited to, that could lead into account deactivation.
   • Manipulating the platform referral program, which includes consumer and dasher referral.
   • Unauthorized use of this Dasher Red Card debit card.
   • Opening or consuming customer foods.
   • Failing to maintain standards of food safety for example not using insulated hot bags to safely transport the foods.
   • Using another person’s Doordash driver account for work, since it’s prohibited when a driver earns money under someone else ABN.
7. ABN Issue
   When applying to the platform, drivers are required to provide their ABN (Australian Business Number), a registration number that helps the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) recognize you as a business. This became a problem when Doordash found the difference between your ABN registered name and your registered Dasher name on the platform. Dasher was only asked to explain the reason for their different names.
   

   ABN Name Issue

   Actually, this is not a permanent deactivation but tends to be a temporary suspension. Because by suspending their account, drivers become aware of problems with their accounts and encourage them to immediately fix the problem.

Can I Appeal Deactivation Decision?

Before deactivated a driver, Doordash must first investigate the violations made by Dasher. Every decision is usually taken after careful consideration from every information available and taking into account the conditions outlined in the Independent Contractor Agreement or Deactivation Policy.

The driver will be provided instructions for how to appeal the decision and get reactivated, this information should be found in the email. This appeal review process applies to deactivation that was based on violations of the independent contractor agreement and deactivation policy. So if you get deactivated due to objective metrics like completion rate and customer rating, then you seem ineligible for this review process.

The appeals process takes a long time because the support team needs to review the Dasher appeals carefully to determine a fair decision. There is no definite time on how long the appeal process will take until the account is reactivated, but some drivers say that it can take up to 30 days.

Payment After Deactivation

After getting a deactivation email from Doordash, you might be curious about your unpaid weekly earning on the Doordash platform. Don’t worry, in most cases, you will still receive any payment owed on the next pay date.

Normally, the weekly payment should arrive on Tuesday for most Dasher in Australia. If you don’t receive it on that day, it should arrive no later than Friday. But, when it is more than that, it is highly recommended to get in touch with the support team via email or live chat from its official website.

However, there are cases where they will not process additional payments. This happens when Doordash caught any fraudulent behaviour from drivers that violate the agreement and policy. However, if you believe that your account was deactivated in error, you still have a chance to appeal the decision.