When faced with these requests, DoorDash customer service reps would ask for some form of verification. The indictment states that the men would use the personal information of the Dasher, such as their phone number, date of birth, recent transactions, or even the last four digits of their driver’s license, to authenticate themselves.
That’s not how these platforms work. They’re not the employer of the driver. The drivers are independent contractors, which means they’re not on payroll and they don’t get a paycheck. They get untaxed earnings, which are held in their DoorDash account until they transfer them to their bank. Legally, DoorDash’s responsibility ends once they credit the driver’s account, because it’s up to the drivers to not get phished.
Obviously, you can make arguments over the ethics of independent contract work in general, but this distinction is important to take note of, as independent contractors don’t have the same benefits or protections that employees would, and there are much different legal processes involved.
Read the article:
Made me think of this.
Mitchell Web - Identity theft
"because it’s up to the drivers to not get phished. "
The drivers were not phished, Doordash the company was.
If I do work for a client, send my invoice by mail, that mail gets intercepted by a scammer, that scammer sends on an altered invoice with their bank account number on it, and the client sends a bank transfer to the scammer … Then the client still owes me money and they still have to pay my real invoice (to me), irregardless of whether or not they manage to reclaim the money that they paid to the scammer.
The technology may have changed, but the same principles apply.
“Independent contractor” is a legal fiction to abuse their workers.