Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Washington D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine filed a lawsuit against delivery service DoorDash on Tuesday alleging the company misled customers about where their tips were going.
Racine filed the suit against DoorDash after an investigation by his office found the company used customers' tips to offset its payment to workers.
At the time, the company's payment structure offered its delivery workers a guaranteed payment amount for each order before accepting and then subsidized the amount with tips customers paid through the app.
The investigation by Racine's office found that DoorDash instead put tip money toward the guaranteed minimum rather than increasing the payment by the tip amount and that while the company encouraged customers to tip, workers were typically paid the same regardless of tip.
Racine said that DoorDash "misled customers, who reasonably believed that their tips would go to workers."
The lawsuit seeks a court order to direct DoorDash to pay back the tip money to its workers as well as civil penalties.
A DoorDash representative told The Wall Street Journal that the company strongly disagrees with the action taken by the attorney general.
"We believe the assertions made in the complaint are without merit and we look forward to responding to them through the legal process," the representative said.
DoorDash changed its tippinb model over the summer announcing that "every dollar customers tip will be an extra dollar in their Dasher's pocket."
