Have you heard of tip baiting on delivery apps? It’s when a customer removes or lowers their tip after a delivery is complete. Unfortunately, it’s an all-too-common experience for Spark delivery drivers.
Here’s a typical tip bait: You accept a delivery that has a $30 payout. You finish the delivery thinking that you did a great job.
But later, you check your earnings and see that the final payout was only $11 because a customer removed a $19 tip. Ouch! That’s a tip bait.
Tip baiting: When you were expecting a $18.94 tip but got $0 instead
Here’s why tip baiting is possible: Walmart customers have 24 hours to adjust their tip after the order is complete. That means they can increase, decrease, or completely remove your tip.
And tip baiting has become an epidemic on Spark. Customers can tip bait on Uber Eats and Instacart too, but Spark drivers seem to suffer from it the most.
“I’ve never seen an app with as much tip baiting as Spark”
Is there anything you can do about tip baiting? Currently, there’s no way to get compensated when a customer lowers your tip.
You can complain to Spark support, but they won’t take any action. For now, your only option is to remember customers who tip bait you and reject their orders in the future.
How tipping works on Spark orders
Walmart customers can leave a tip for Spark delivery drivers during or after checkout, and drivers keep 100% of tips. Customers can tip a flat amount or a percentage of the order.
When a customer tips during checkout, they have 24 hours to edit the tip. They can increase it, remove it, or confirm the initial amount and keep it the same.
Before the 24 hour settlement period has gone by, tips will appear in your earnings as “Unconfirmed tips.” Tips will be labeled “Confirmed tips” after 24 hours pass.
Tips are ‘unconfirmed’ until the 24 hour settlement period goes by. Customers can increase or decrease them during this time
When a customer does not tip before delivery, they have 14 days to add a tip after the delivery.
Spark customers: Drivers can see your tip before they accept a delivery
Before accepting an order, Spark drivers can get a general idea of how much a customer tipped at checkout because the pay estimate for each order includes any tips that customers leave at checkout.
The estimate doesn’t say exactly how much the tip is, but drivers can calculate the general tip amount because base pay from Spark is typically around $6.50–$8.50. Any amount more than the base pay comes from the customer’s tip.
Drivers can also see when a customer raises or lowers a tip after a delivery. The earnings statement for each order displays the expected tip and the actual tip.
Examples of tip baiting on Spark
Let’s start with the worst tip bait that we’ve ever seen on Spark. Below, the driver expected a $100 tip but only received $5. $95 was taken away! That hurts.
A record-breaking tip bait. $95 removed!
Below is another terrible tip bait. The driver expected a total payout of $79.73, but only got $15.81 after the customer lowered the tip from $63.92 to $10.
$64 dropped to $10! That’s rough
Below is a more everyday bait: The tip was reduced by about $10, from $17.23 to $8.18. Still hurts!
A $9 bait
This one hurts: From $20 to $0.
From $20 to $0. It hurts.
The bait below—from $16.44 to $2—might have been a customer realizing that they tipped a percentage of the order instead of a flat amount.
$2 is a lot less than $16.44!
Here’s another that might have been a customer realizing that they accidentally tipped a percentage of the order. But even if you didn’t mean to tip $44, lowering it to $0 is not OK.
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$44 to $0 is painful
Why do customers tip bait?
There are many reasons why customers choose to lower their tip:
- Upset about missing items, wrong items, or poor item quality
- Upset about the delivery: Placed in wrong location, came too late or too early etc
- Upset that other directions weren’t followed
- Tipped to get faster service, then removed it to save money
- The initial tip was a mistake
The frustrating thing about tip baiting is that many customer complaints are out of the delivery driver’s control.
Out-of-stock items, poor-quality items, or slow delivery times aren’t the driver’s fault, but many customers will take it out on their driver by reducing tips.
Is tip baiting ever justified?
Many customers feel justified in removing a tip if a serious mistake happens.
Maybe your driver completely ignored your delivery instructions, left the order at the wrong address, or made a rude comment to you when they dropped off the order. Lowering or removing your tip may be justified in that case.
Lowering your tip could be also be justified if your original tip was a mistake. Sometimes customers accidentally tip a percentage of the order instead of a flat amount and only realize their mistake after receiving their final receipt.
What you can do about tip baiting
Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to prevent a customer from lowering or removing a tip, and there is no way to get compensated by Spark support.
Many drivers contact Spark support to complain about tip baiting, but Spark never pays drivers for reduced tips.
And you can report tip baiters to Spark, but currently they don’t take any action against them.
One thing you can do is keep a record of customers who lower or remove your tip and reject their order if you see their address on a future order.
“I keep track of tip baiters. And I won’t deliver to them again”
Confronting a customer about tip baiting isn’t a good idea. There’s a good chance Spark will deactivate you if a customer complains.
How other delivery apps fight tip baiting
Spark isn’t the only app that has a tip baiting problem. Instacart and Uber Eats have well-known tip baiting problems, but both have taken steps to help with the problem.
Instacart has a tip protection feature that pays drivers up to $10 if a customer significantly reduces a tip.
On Uber Eats, customers only have 1 hour to change their tip. In the past, customers had a full 24 hours, giving people more time to change their mind about a tip.
DoorDash is one of the only delivery apps that doesn’t allow tip baiting. After a DoorDash order is complete, customers can only increase a tip. It’s not possible to lower or remove the tip.
Spark drivers sound off about tip baiting
“Tip baiting should be illegal”
“This is getting ridiculous, tip baited 7x in the last week and a half!”
“Walmart is the only delivery service I’ve dealt with that gives the customer a full 24 hours to change their tip”
“This is why I stopped doing spark…I want actual concrete numbers not what ifs”
“You get everything they want and deliver with care and they STILL drop it to $0”
More help for Spark drivers
Kim Jones says
I am keeping track now with all these tip baits and let me tell you I am going to print the list out for all the spark drivers in my area and pass them out, when no one takes there order well maybe Spark will do something this is so stupid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chris Hanson says
Perhaps Spark drivers would get better tips if Walmart didn’t reset the tip if you try to tip before you pay. My wife found that Walmart resets the tip to the minimum if you put in a custom tip before paying for your order. Why is this? If you pay for the order and then tip it seems to stay what you input for a custom tip.
Anna says
I am happy to give the tip I indicated IF I receive what I am being charged for. If there are missing items that are showing on my account as being delivered then the problem is not mine. If I were a driver I would take one minute to see if I am leaving what that person is being charged for. It would be a simple step and appropriate step for any driver to do. If the problem is whoever shopped for the order not properly adjusting what they give you to deliver then I would follow that up with the store involved and not blame a customer who gets very tired having to call in and get a credit for being charged for what they didn’t get.
Fred Fredericks says
Sounds like you need to go pick up your own items then.
Anthony Todd Harris says
What if it’s not the customer but Spark who is doing the tip bating?
NeverL8 says
Yes, I agree with Fred, Anna shop for yourself. Spark drivers typically have 2-4 orders at once and each order may have well over 20 items. Who has time to check all those orders, the app does not show out of stock items and by the way, the app does not allow drivers to check the order at all once the delivery is in process! This tip baiting happens all the time i.e. with customers who have gotten all 6 chairs and the single box of firelogs they ordered, no missing items there. Some customers are just heartless and trying to get their procrastinated orders delivered faster for that last-minute cookout! I only wish these inconsiderate people would have to work for tips one day to see how awful it feels!!!
Daniel Rodriguez says
Thanks was going to sign up for it but never mind everyone should just boycott and I guarantee Walmart will stop it but since no one does guess it’ll keep on happening plus mostly all illegal citizens are doing these gig jobs they don’t care what they get paid so it affects us legal folks don’t believe me take a look at the drivers mostly all are illegals working under false name
Abby says
Now your creating a false narrative. I could assume why but that would be creative a false accusation. I’m not sure how you got an okay to be a spark driver but I had to provide a DL a SSN and a background check was down along with insurance information sooooooo I’m not sure where you got the conclusion that people are falsifying their information for this “gig”? How you came to the realization that they were illegal if you don’t even know them is crazy but not surprising to me.
Thomas says
A good example is if you hired someone to put a roof on your house and he said it was too far out so you text him and say I’ll give you a extra 2000 to do it, he did it then you just gave him an extra 500 you’d be in small claims court and when he showed the judge the text you’d be out the 1500 plu court cost. A that’s exactly the same thing.
Thomas says
First of all this is mis labeled. A tip is a gratuity given in thanks for doing a job. When you tell someone in writing you will pay an amount for them to do a job that’s a contract. Changing that amount without the permission of the person you made the contract with is breach of contract. They can call it anything they want but it doesn’t change the law. These people need to either pay what they promise, promise what they want to pay or get kicked off the app for breaking the law.BREACH OF CONTRACT.
A says
I couldn’t agree more. I have ways followed the instructions arrived on time and been so kind to my customers. But they ways wanna put a high tip on there then they pull it once their orders have been received. I learn which customers do that by writing their names down and checking then I reject them when I see their names so I don’t get th ever again
Terrence Wogan says
I don’t think it’s tip baiting. The only time tips are messed with are if they are over a certain amount and then they are reduced exactly in half. Two this week one went from 41.75 to 20.88 and 18.88 to 9.44. What are the odds that two customers out of 7 reduce their tips exactly by half. It happens on a regular basis
slim says
Now that you mentioned it, I had the same. Wowza. I didn’t realize that it was a thing. Also, that fictitious extra earnings for apartments isn’t extra at all. They reduce the base pay by as much as the extra earnings.