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'App Truthers' Question the Accuracy of the Domino's Pizza Tracker (foxnews.com)

Despite the fact that 60% of its pizza orders arrive digitally, "A growing number of Domino's delivery customers are casting a critical eye at the company's online pizza-tracking app," reports the lifestyle editor at Fox News. "More specifically, they think it's a bunch of crap." Fault-finding app users -- or "app truthers," as The Wall Street Journal calls them -- are subscribing to the notion that the Domino's pizza tracker is nothing but a bunch of smoke and mirrors. One user who spoke with the Journal claims his app told him that "Melinda" would be arriving shortly with his order, but when he opened the door, a delivery man he already knew handed him the pizza. "Ever since then, I knew everything they said, I felt, was made up," he said.

Another man claims the tracker told him his pizza was en route, even though he could see the Domino's restaurant from his house, and there was no sign of the pizza being out for delivery. Others claim the pizza app told them their food had been delivered when it hadn't, or that there were huge discrepancies between when their pies were supposed to be delivered and when they actually arrived. A whole thread on Reddit suggests that the app is just an automated timer disguised to look like a real-time tracker.

In a statement Domino's blamed the problem on employees not entering correct data, while also insisting that "the vast majority of the time Pizza Tracker works as designed."

According to the article, "A person who claimed to be a Domino's employee also said nearly as much in a 2015 Reddit thread. He/she added that the name of the person preparing the pizza -- as far as the app is concerned -- is usually the manager.

5 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Someone who could see the restaurant ordered DELIVERY?!?

    WALK OVER AND GET IT!!!!

    1. Re: Really? by freeze128 · · Score: 4, Informative

      97th and Lyndale Avenue South. Just last week I ordered a pizza for Carryout at 10:58PM. When I got to the store, the "open" light was off, and the waiting area was dark. The door was unlocked, so I went in. The Manager there said that they close for carryout orders at 11:00PM, but still make deliveries. This is done to prevent robberies late at night at the store.

  2. In Japan by theNetImp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The pizza tracker on their website in Japan is fairly accurate. On busy nights it sits at the first stage until they actually work on it. When it's delivered we have a GPS option to watch the driver. The driver always arrives when they the map shows them in front of the house. I wouldn't be surprised if the US version is faked a bit. The Japanese wouldn't stand for that.

    1. Re:In Japan by Kohath · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think the app just relays entered information. The Japanese pizza guys probably aren't entering fake info to make it appear like they are working hard and following procedure.

  3. Re: More specifically, they think it's a bunch of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The tracker has jack shit to do with the food.

    Here I'll break it down for you.
    When you place an order it starts a timer.
    When it's being made it starts a timer.
    When it goes in the oven, new timer!

    The employees don't get any trouble for being slow, they get in trouble for the time on the computer looking bad.
    They are trained to keep those timers under a certain time wether they got to that step or not.

    When all the timers are done they assign it to a driver who's probably still on some other delivery just keep the timer number looking good.
    Then it gets reassigned to the first driver to show up.

    This is called micromanaging and it's retarded in a restaurant,