FAIRFAX, Va. — Alex Kang has been in the restaurant business in Fairfax for the past two years. He says since opening Okonomi Asian Grill, it’s been a lot of work to keep things up and running, but he’s proud of what he’s started and appreciates the community support he’s gotten so far.
“We’ve had people come, try our food, the longest stint we had someone do was 30 days. He came 30 days straight!” Kang recalled. “You know you’re doing something good when a guy is coming in for a month straight!”
Yet now, Kang has to deal with another problem: people using DoorDash to steal meals.
Fairfax City Police say thieves are exploiting a loophole in Doordash’s system, where the thieves put in an order, wait until the food is ready, and then cancel the order, but still pick up the food.
Kang says thieves have been hitting his restaurant since April. Fairfax City Police say the latest suspect was seen leaving the area in a BMW sedan and may have done this four times around the city.
“There was a period where we had five in three days,” he said. “Five dine-and-dashes in three days, four different people.”
Kang says he realized what was happening after seeing so many canceled orders.
He says was able to capture the thieves on video surveillance. However, Kang was shocked to learn that even after showing proof of what was happening to DoorDash, he would be punished for the thefts.
“DoorDash has actually tagged me as a repeat offender as a business like we’re not fulfilling our orders, so that means we’re ranked lower in their search engines,” Kang explained. “Basically, if you’re not on the first or second page of DoorDash, you’re not going to get noticed at all.”
Kang says he’s already seen his sales drop since he was tagged, and after getting no help from DoorDash, he’s reconsidering his partnership with the food delivery company, because the costs are too high.
“DoorDash has all this power in this partnership,” he said. “They’re taking the lion’s share, but they’re not working with the police, they’re not working with me as a partner.”
WUSA9 reached out to DoorDash for comment and received a statement, saying it had reimbursed the restaurant for the orders and banned the customer accounts involved.
"At DoorDash, we have no tolerance for fraud and we will not allow anyone to target or abuse merchants on our platform," the statement reads. "We're reaching out to the restaurant owner to provide additional support and stand ready to support police with any investigation into this incident. Importantly, we’ve put in place robust anti-fraud measures and are always working to strengthen them to better protect merchants."
Additionally, DoorDash announced in June steps the company is taking to prevent fraud and support businesses. Those steps can be found on the DoorDash website.
This week, Kang announced a cash reward on social media to anyone with information that could lead to the thieves’ capture. Until then, Kang says he’s stuck watching his sales suffer on two fronts, but he also says he’s not alone.
“I’m in a great position in the sense that I’m able to communicate when something like this happens to me to the community or other people, but there are other restaurants in the area that the owners don’t speak English, they’re not able to communicate what’s happening to them,” he said.