Devagiri admitted to working with others in 2020 and 2021 to cause DoorDash to pay for deliveries that never occurred. At the time, Devagiri was a delivery driver for DoorDash orders. Under the scheme, Devagiri used customer accounts to place high value orders and then, using an employee’s credentials to gain access to DoorDash software, manually reassigned DoorDash orders to driver accounts that he and others controlled. Devagiri then caused the fraudulent driver accounts to report that the orders had been delivered, when they had not, and manipulated DoorDash’s computer systems to prompt DoorDash to pay the fraudulent driver accounts for the non-existent deliveries. Devagiri would then use DoorDash software to change the orders from “delivered” status to “in process” status and manually reassign the orders to driver accounts he and others controlled, beginning the process again. This procedure usually took less than five minutes, and was repeated hundreds of times for many of the orders.

The scheme resulted in fraudulent payments exceeding $2.5 million.

  • kevincox@lemmy.ml
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    14 hours ago

    I’m struggling to see how this actually made money. Because presumably the customer is paying for the delivery (as well as the food that was never ordered). So the fraudsters would just be paying themselves in a complicated way. My best guess is one of the following:

    1. DoorDash is subsidizing orders so much that this is profitable overall (the amount they pay the driver is more than the customer pays) seems unlikely.
    2. DoorDash is paying the driver multiple times but only charging the customer once. But if this was the case how was this obvious accounting issue never noticed? Shouldn’t the books come out even in the end?
    • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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      13 hours ago

      There is no customer involved.

      1. They place an order and pay for it
      2. They force the order to be assigned to one of the drivers
      3. Driver claims the order is delivered
      4. Doordash pays the driver
      5. They overwrite the data so that it goes back to step by 2.
      6. They “deliver” and get paid for the same order hundreds of times.

      Books were probably red, but it takes a while to identify something like this.