DoorDash now has payment plans

[FireLane]

Just when you thought America couldn't get any more dystopian, capitalism finds a way: DoorDash now lets you pay off your food delivery on an installment plan.

When customers reach check-out, they’ll see Klarna as an additional payment option, giving them more freedom to choose how they want to pay. Options will include:

Pay in Full allows customers to pay for what they love right away using Klarna’s seamless payments experience.

Pay in 4 allows customers to pay in four equal interest-free installments

Pay Later allows customers to defer payments to a more convenient time, such as a date that aligns with their paycheck schedules

As if paying $40 for an underpaid gig worker to drive a cold burger and fries over to your house in a gas-guzzling SUV wasn't bad enough, now you can take out a buy-now-pay-later loan to do it! The press release touts how "convenient" this is, and I'm sure they'll "conveniently" tack on a ton of late fees and interest when people inevitably miss a payment.

There are so many layers of bad decisions here. Naturally, given the kind of country we are, I expect it will be very popular and profitable.

[reeshau]

I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

[JAYSLOL]

For a lot of people, the cascade of horrendous consequences playing with this type of payment plan leads to is unreal. People that do this often end up overspending and stacking up multiples of these types of payments without realizing it, and end up getting hit with overdraft charges or credit card interest and fees, because they’ve run out of cash or credit on hand, then have to turn to 600% payday loans, title loans, and pawn shops, which get them stuck in that cycle until they are in complete financial ruin. These companies know what they’re doing too, they know exactly how much more their users will overspend by when they have the option to split payments, and how many of them will be ruined by it. Ultimately, it’s up to users to choose not to use these types of products, but if it were up to me I’d ban Klarna and others like it in a heartbeat.

[theninthwall]

The normalization of food delivery still blows my mind. I think somehow in people’s minds it falls into the small indulgence category, like a coffee from Starbucks, and yet is reaching $20, $30, $40 a pop.

MMM said it well: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/08/01/a-millionaire-is-made-ten-bucks-at-a-time/

On the weekend we saw a young kid, maybe 12 or 13, deliver food to our neighbor’s door. It was a McDonald’s order, and we literally live a quarter-mile from McDonald’s.

[uniwelder]

On the weekend we saw a young kid, maybe 12 or 13, deliver food to our neighbor’s door.

Wow! Sounds like they’re a real go getter. Hopefully it wasn’t a DoorDash driver parent, dragging their kid along with them to make the final leg of delivery.

[Metalcat]

The normalization of food delivery still blows my mind. I think somehow in people’s minds it falls into the small indulgence category, like a coffee from Starbucks, and yet is reaching $20, $30, $40 a pop.

MMM said it well: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/08/01/a-millionaire-is-made-ten-bucks-at-a-time/

On the weekend we saw a young kid, maybe 12 or 13, deliver food to our neighbor’s door. It was a McDonald’s order, and we literally live a quarter-mile from McDonald’s.

When I hear about how often people have food delivered, it blows my mind. Granted I'm in Canada where food costs are kind of nuts. I ordered a bowl of soup to be delivered when I got back into the city because I was feeling awful and it cost me $45.

I order food delivery maybe once or twice a year because it's just insanely expensive for slightly warm food to be delivered, and more than a few times my order has been wrong.

I cannot fathom doing it multiple times a week, which is what I hear from so many young people.

[Sibley]

I know someone who will mostly likely be happy to do the payment plan. Recently graduated kid, he's fat and lazy, and I'm really not sure how smart he is. He works a fast food job and is frequently buying or doordashing food. He also lives at home for free, dad bought him a car, etc.

[A1Jackass]

Pay in Full allows customers to pay for what they love right away using Klarna’s seamless payments experience.

I don't know how anyone orders things like DoorDash more than on a rare occasion. Every time I do it, the sticker shock coupled with the lukewarm food is enough to discourage me for a few years.

[sonofsven]

Great! I'll remember to use this when I'm in hospice care.

[wonkette]

On the weekend we saw a young kid, maybe 12 or 13, deliver food to our neighbor’s door.

Wow! Sounds like they’re a real go getter. Hopefully it wasn’t a DoorDash driver parent, dragging their kid along with them to make the final leg of delivery.

I've seen the parent and tween/teen duo thing frequently in my area. I have a neighbor that is a lawyer who works mostly from home and seems to go through phases where he gets a lot delivered! This weekend his door was visited by a doordash motorcycle, an amazon delivery van, and an instacart shopper (the adult driver + teen combo) within an hour! Hopefully he isn't using the payment plans.

[SunnyDays]

I get take out maybe 3 times a year and pick it up myself.  I can't fathom that people need to have it delivered, much less pay on installments.  I always thought the price of fast food was very cheap in the US, much more so than here in Canada.  I have a hard time feeling sorry for anyone who goes into debt over this.

[twinstudy]

If you're dumb enough to over extend then you get to bear the consequences.

People love to say 'why worry about the cost of a latte, or avocado toast, or Doordash, because I wouldn't be able to afford a house regardless' but that's like saying why bother taking the stairs instead of the lift because I'm not going to lose 5kg overnight regardless. It's the small steps of discipline which build to something big over time...and people who can't do that will have to suck it up.

Don't want to pay in instalments? Don't. There's no excuse. Especially for something like Doordash which is not exactly a necessity.

[lifeisshort123]

In the states we have a channel called QVC which sells products all day, every day.  All they do is sell sell sell...

I have never bought from them but do find it entertaining to watch it from time to time...

Nearly every item can be bought on "easy pay" which means you pay over several months.  Usually it is cheaper (by a couple of pennies) to do the "payment plan" to pay for a $20 bag of gourmet pretzels over 5 months....
 It makes no sense to me!


Personally, I hate any recurring expenses.  I prefer to have to take the hit once and be done with it...

[Dicey]

Our neighbors either eat out or order in every.damn.day. Their address is a bit tricky, so we always point the delivery drivers in the right direction, mostly because we don't want them pulling into our driveway. A couple of years ago, they did a massive kitchen remodel, using the services of a designer and contractor. It did not change the frequency of their meal delivery one bit. Just for fun, he bought a brand-new pick up truck around the same time, which he never needs, because he does not DIY anything.

They both have good jobs, so I doubt they would avail themselves of this new "service," but the amount of money they waste is appalling.

[2Birds1Stone]

I get food delivery every day, sometimes twice a day. Even have them deliver it to the beach so I can enjoy under a palm tree.

[Dicey]

I get food delivery every day, sometimes twice a day. Even have them deliver it to the beach so I can enjoy under a palm tree.

Lovely! You get a pass, as you are a traveler. It probably costs less than the ingredients would at home.

[2Birds1Stone]

Haha, spot on Dicey.

Here in Vietnam I get the same order almost every single day

1 Cup organic Purple/Brown Rice
1 Cup organic Sweet Potato
50g organic broccoli
50g organic bell peppers & onions
50g organic red pickled cabbage
50g organic black beans
50g organic chick peas
200g organic chicken breast
60 ml peanut sauce or 40ml spicey mayo

It works out to $4.75 with delivery and tip.......I will miss it dearly as we are leaving this morning.

The same meal would easily be $20+ in the USA and probably not all organic.

[bacchi]

Great! I'll remember to use this when I'm in hospice care.

Can you prepay hospice care? It'd be lovely to stick Klarna with an unpaid bill and an empty estate.

[LennStar]

In the states we have a channel called QVC which sells products all day, every day.  All they do is sell sell sell...

I have never bought from them but do find it entertaining to watch it from time to time...

We have it in Germany too. Where I lived before one older lady spy women would regularily get a packet from there. The first time shocked me deeply because up to that I thought nobody would be so dumb as to buy there. (Feeling wise, intellectually I of course understand there must a sizeable number of people.)

[glacio09]

In the states we have a channel called QVC which sells products all day, every day.  All they do is sell sell sell...

I have never bought from them but do find it entertaining to watch it from time to time...

We have it in Germany too. Where I lived before one older lady spy women would regularily get a packet from there. The first time shocked me deeply because up to that I thought nobody would be so dumb as to buy there. (Feeling wise, intellectually I of course understand there must a sizeable number of people.)

I horror watch youtube videos on overconsumption. They compilate all of the tiktoks and instagram stuff so that I don't have to go on there. So much of it just looks like QVC for The Youth. All of the restocking and unboxing is just one long ad.

[uniwelder]

In the states we have a channel called QVC which sells products all day, every day.  All they do is sell sell sell...

I have never bought from them but do find it entertaining to watch it from time to time...

We have it in Germany too. Where I lived before one older lady spy women would regularily get a packet from there. The first time shocked me deeply because up to that I thought nobody would be so dumb as to buy there. (Feeling wise, intellectually I of course understand there must a sizeable number of people.)

I horror watch youtube videos on overconsumption. They compilate all of the tiktoks and instagram stuff so that I don't have to go on there. So much of it just looks like QVC for The Youth. All of the restocking and unboxing is just one long ad.

Getting off topic, but.... There is a forum member here that swears by QVC for prepaid phone plans (and I think iPhones?).  They say its consistently the cheapest way to get a year service contract (with a phone along with it?).

[reeshau]

In the states we have a channel called QVC which sells products all day, every day.  All they do is sell sell sell...

I have never bought from them but do find it entertaining to watch it from time to time...

We have it in Germany too. Where I lived before one older lady spy women would regularily get a packet from there. The first time shocked me deeply because up to that I thought nobody would be so dumb as to buy there. (Feeling wise, intellectually I of course understand there must a sizeable number of people.)

I horror watch youtube videos on overconsumption. They compilate all of the tiktoks and instagram stuff so that I don't have to go on there. So much of it just looks like QVC for The Youth. All of the restocking and unboxing is just one long ad.

Getting off topic, but.... There is a forum member here that swears by QVC for prepaid phone plans (and I think iPhones?).  They say its consistently the cheapest way to get a year service contract (with a phone along with it?).

I can honestly see some marketer forecasting low data usage for a mobile customer that shops by watching QVC, rather than searching on the internet, one way or another.  That could certainly translate to low prices.

[kina]

In the states we have a channel called QVC which sells products all day, every day.  All they do is sell sell sell...

I have never bought from them but do find it entertaining to watch it from time to time...

We have it in Germany too. Where I lived before one older lady spy women would regularily get a packet from there. The first time shocked me deeply because up to that I thought nobody would be so dumb as to buy there. (Feeling wise, intellectually I of course understand there must a sizeable number of people.)

I horror watch youtube videos on overconsumption. They compilate all of the tiktoks and instagram stuff so that I don't have to go on there. So much of it just looks like QVC for The Youth. All of the restocking and unboxing is just one long ad.

Getting off topic, but.... There is a forum member here that swears by QVC for prepaid phone plans (and I think iPhones?).  They say its consistently the cheapest way to get a year service contract (with a phone along with it?).

I don't think that's me (not an iPhone) but I did get a new 5g Tracfone from either QVC or HSN (home shopping network) that came with a year's service, 1500 texts, 1500 phone minutes, and (I think) 2 gigs of data for around $120. I do add some data a couple times a year ($10 for 3 gigs). It certainly isn't the latest and greatest but it does what I want it to. Everything rolls over as long as I keep up the service. I have a hack for getting a year renewal for ~$50 if anyone is interested.

[Bobo629]

I have a well-fed former in-office co-worker who laments that he will have to work until 70 years of age (15 years from now) but at the same time brags that his DoorDash bill for last year was "over 10k!", brags that he spent 1000 bucks IRL money for a spaceship on a video game called Star Citizen, and buys a top of the line computer gaming rig (claims his last purchase was 6k) ever other year.

Ten thousand dollars in DoorDash???

I will say this for him: he is extremely bright, quick to learn and optimize where it suits him, but in pure reasoning i.e. A+B=C he's locked in a fantasy world. He has near zero ability to delay gratification. Got promoted to a work-from-home job 2 months ago and last week told me that he didn't leave his condo in that time. He also has a massage therapist come to his place once a week.

All of that is amazing, but I think 10k in annual DoorDash spending takes the cake.

[Tasse]

I'm confused about the bragging. What part of spending $10k on DoorDash is supposed to be impressive? Is the brag that he can afford to do that? Is he bragging about how much interesting food he eats? Is it just an astonishing number that he feels no shame about?

[Bobo629]

I'm confused about the bragging. What part of spending $10k on DoorDash is supposed to be impressive? Is the brag that he can afford to do that? Is he bragging about how much interesting food he eats? Is it just an astonishing number that he feels no shame about?

He does a lot of bragging about various things. I believe in this one instance the brag was for the shock value to underscore the extent to which he has conquered life's challenges by throwing money at them, with cost not being a metric worth mentioning unless it is to be used as a verification of his claim that cost isn't a consideration for his choices.

Another brag is that he is one of the great video gamers on Earth: to wit, he spends 5k to 7k every other year, just for the fractional bump in computing power he gets in the latest video card. This brag serves as evidence to support his claim to being a great video game player. His commitment is such that cost is no object to maintain his status of gaming on the cutting edge of technology.

At 55, he keeps photos of ex girlfriends on his cell phones, some more than 30 years ago! He has nothing to do with dating, hooking up, nor prowling now...but if you should think it's because he has no game, these photos are broken out and shown at regular intervals to put any such notions to rest. He lives an utterly single life because he chooses to, not because he can't get "a smokin' hot chick".

He reminds me of George on Seinfeld a bit.

[hooplady]

I think statements about how much someone spends on DoorDash, or video gaming, or anything else, are only a "brag" if the recipient of the information thinks it is such. Personally I'd be inclined to perceive this as an admission of an addiction, and probably would ask if they are receiving counseling.

[Bobo629]

I think statements about how much someone spends on DoorDash, or video gaming, or anything else, are only a "brag" if the recipient of the information thinks it is such. Personally I'd be inclined to perceive this as an admission of an addiction, and probably would ask if they are receiving counseling.

Agree. I don't think anything he brags about is worthy of bragging, but he does. He is fun to listen to, a fascinating character. To go to lunch with him is an experience in and of itself. He lives in his own little world. Or big world? He is about as UN-mustachian as a human can be, but when he feels the need he can be ultra-professional, well-spoken, and charming...and this has landed him a job that lets him stay home and make 175k per year. As he tells it, he spends it all. His retirement plan is the 401k and the matching (6%) plus SS at 70 years of age. There is also a small pension at this company that puts roughly 12k per year of employment, so at 70 he will be at roughly 300k.

It takes all kinds, and he is quite memorable. Anyone who knows who he is smiles when his name comes up in conversation. I agree, some counseling could probably benefit him, but that would cost him 2 hours per day of gaming.