New York (CNN Business) DoorDash is being sued by DC Attorney General Karl Racine over allegedly deceiving customers with a controversial tipping policy.

The complaint is drawing renewed attention to a since-changed DoorDash policy where a customer's tip could be put toward covering the base pay for that customer's delivery person instead of as an above-and-beyond payment as tips are typically intended.

According to the complaint, the practice was in place from July 2017 until at least September 2019, during which customers in DC alone paid "millions of dollars in tips that were used to subsidize DoorDash's payments to Dashers," as the company refers to its delivery people. The lawsuit seeks to recover that money and impose civil penalties.

"This practice was deceptive, as any reasonable consumer would have expected that the amount they chose to tip would increase a worker's pay and be provided to workers on top of DoorDash's promised payment," the complaint, released by the Office of the Attorney General, alleges.

The Office of the Attorney General opened an investigation of DoorDash's tipping practices in March 2019, according to the complaint. After mounting backlash to its policy, DoorDash announced changes to how workers would be compensated in late August.

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