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Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

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Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#171

Post by 8note »

mabbo wrote: post #19

I hope there's a strong precedent set here. Companies like Grubhub list restaurants on their site/app, but put the wrong phone number on it- one that goes to their own people instead. That's clearly some kind of fraud or misrepresentation. Makes me feel like I should setup a phone number and a website called something like "GrubhubHelp.com", and list a help number for assistance with GrubHub orders. Then when custome…

If you want fraud/misrepresentation, Postmates puts up incorrect menus and accept orders on things the restaurant doesn't even make

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#172

Post by avs733 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #93
ghthrowaway99 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[ Disclaimer: GH employee but speaking independently & not representing the company in this message ] You're mixing up controversies - there was a separate "feature" Grubhub did years ago where grubhub would stand up online presence for restaurants to bring in web search traffic (branded websites, search results on grubhub.com, etc) and list a grubhub phone number instead of the real phone number so that grubhub coul…

To a first approximation, I can't really see why Place and Pay should be illegal. It's basically paying the neighbor kid to go pick up some dinner for you, writ large. It "competes" with any delivery service a restaurant runs, but if the restaurant offers takeout at all, it's hard for me to see why the market should care who is doing the taking out.

because it doesn't SAY place and pay

it says I'm ordering from the restaurant.

it is lying to the customer by misrepresenting the price and performacne of the restaurant. When GH messes up, the implications are rarely for GH, they are for the restaurant which gets a bad review by the customer.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#173

Post by iaw »

moksly wrote: post #149
TuringNYC wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI - the same thing happens with Hotels.com. When you "call the hotel" with the number listed, I learned that the representative is actually a Hotels.com rep, not a hotel employee or hotel call-center employee. This matters. In my case, I asked about my corporate discount and they gave me a vague answer about "I dont see anything in the system", which I guess was technically not a lie, but definitely deceitful. I wi…

I was doing a stint of formulating our national enterprise architecture, something I was invited to because of my local work on the subject. During this period I staid at hotels quite often, and learned that the best way to get a good and cheap booking is to E-mail the hotel directly. The cheap part came from being an enterprise organisation, but as far as secure and easy booking goes I always email hotels directly f…

My experience (years ago) was that the hotels would prefer people did this as they don't like the middlemen either.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#174

Post by ghthrowaway99 »

icebraining wrote: post #151
kop316 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Grubhub was against place and pay at first, when UberEats and Doordash began doing it (not because Grubhub is selfless but because partnered restaurants are way more profitable), but resisting place and pay turned out to be a recipe for losing market share so that's no longer the case." If Grubhub actually took a stand and showed they not only did not do this sort of behavior, I would actually use it, and I would pa…

I don't get it, how would the restaurant be losing money from this behaviour? Isn't Grubhub paying the regular takeout price, same as if you order it yourself?

At face value non-partnered restaurants dont lose money, they simply get more customers (essentially, getting some of the services that partnered restaurants get, but for free since partnered restaurants pay fees for each order that goes through the platform)

However, in truth they pay damage in reputation. If the delivery company delivers food slow, or lets it get cold, then the customer will blame the restaurant. On top of that, unpartnered restaurants will naturally get slower delivery times because the order flow involves grubhub delivery people walking in and placing an order (or calling in), whereas partnered restaurants get point of sale systems integrated with grubhub's backend. They get less accurate delivery time estimations. They might pay a much higher delivery fee or service fee. All things add up to a worse customer experience.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#175

Post by toomuchtodo »

iaw wrote: post #173
moksly wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was doing a stint of formulating our national enterprise architecture, something I was invited to because of my local work on the subject. During this period I staid at hotels quite often, and learned that the best way to get a good and cheap booking is to E-mail the hotel directly. The cheap part came from being an enterprise organisation, but as far as secure and easy booking goes I always email hotels directly f…

My experience (years ago) was that the hotels would prefer people did this as they don't like the middlemen either.

I always lookup the hotel on an aggregator (Hotels.com usually) and then call the hotel directly to book.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#176

Post by jschwartzi »

nevi-me wrote: post #141
sathackr wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it gets 'shitty' when they do this without disclosure. I have no problem with placing an order with GH and having them place the order for me, but when they masquerade as the restaurant and try to hide that from the customer is where the problem comes in.

And what happens when orders go wrong? Last month the grilled chicken place gave me chicken which wasn't grilled. I called them (they have a national call centre), and the store manager called me shortly after, to apologise. Following day they sent me chicken. Last week I was at a pizza place at night. An angry customer called, they got the other wrong. I listened to the store manager for about 4-6 minutes trying to…

We had the same experience with GH once(and never again as we canceled). The food arrived and was completely inedible. The restaurant sent out a vindaloo that was the most unnatural red color, like they had dumped a bin full of chili flake in it.

Grubhub pointed the finger at the local restaurant, and the local restaurant pointed the finger at GH for not specifying the level of spiciness. In the end the only way to resolve the problem was to do a chargeback because neither merchant would take responsibility. We didn't have the business relationship with the restaurant. So I'll never use GH for anything because when something goes wrong they absolve themselves of responsibility.

And I'm skeptical of any other company that acts as a base middleman like they do.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#177

Post by codysan »

ghthrowaway99 wrote: post #82
mabbo wrote: post #19

I hope there's a strong precedent set here. Companies like Grubhub list restaurants on their site/app, but put the wrong phone number on it- one that goes to their own people instead. That's clearly some kind of fraud or misrepresentation. Makes me feel like I should setup a phone number and a website called something like "GrubhubHelp.com", and list a help number for assistance with GrubHub orders. Then when custome…

[ Disclaimer: GH employee but speaking independently & not representing the company in this message ] You're mixing up controversies - there was a separate "feature" Grubhub did years ago where grubhub would stand up online presence for restaurants to bring in web search traffic (branded websites, search results on grubhub.com, etc) and list a grubhub phone number instead of the real phone number so that grubhub coul…

FWIW, Postmates has been doing these "Place & Pay" orders since ~2012. A courier for Postmates was more akin to someone taking orders from an app like Favor/TaskRabbit than a purpose-built restaurant delivery service.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#178

Post by duskwuff »

shermheadryder wrote: post #87
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they have to ask for permission to present themselves as an agent of the company, which they do when they present their own phone number as the restaurant phone number. So I imagine the lawsuit will have many legs to stand on. This is business, which has many rules. Its not just 'do whatever you like as long as it makes money'.

> Yes they have to ask for permission to present themselves as an agent of the company That's not necessarily true (yet), that's literally what this legal case is about.

No, that is already true under existing law. Presenting yourself falsely as an agent of a company, and profiting from that, is fraudulent misrepresentation.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#179

Post by _jal »

nogabebop23 wrote: post #160
shadowgovt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a first approximation, I can't really see why Place and Pay should be illegal. It's basically paying the neighbor kid to go pick up some dinner for you, writ large. It "competes" with any delivery service a restaurant runs, but if the restaurant offers takeout at all, it's hard for me to see why the market should care who is doing the taking out.

Hey, if it's just fast food why does the market even care who prepares it? How long till these food "delivery" services just capture all the addressable market masquerading as a bunch of uninformed, non-participating restaurants and make the food they deliver? Why are they leaving all this extra margin on the table?

"The market" doesn't have opinions any more than "the environment" does.

Market participants all care for different reasons.

As far as assuming the business identities of "non participating" restaurants, that sort of thing has a long history - it is a favorite of various organized crime rings.

So in that sense, it does seem a natural fit for GH.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#180

Post by NohatCoder »

londons_explore wrote: post #137
s_dev wrote: post #7

Trading under another brands name -- by listing them as an ordering place with an unofficial dark kitchen associated in your app -- seems like the most egregious form of trade mark infringement. Why aren't GrubHub concerned about the legal reprecussions of this?

If I sell you some 2nd hand Lego bricks, the same logic aplies. I am not affiliated with Lego, yet the thing I am selling was legitimately made by Lego a while ago. When I describe what I'm selling, I clearly say I am offering lego bricks for sale. Here grubhub seems to be doing the exact same thing with food. Hard to see how one can be illegal while the other isn't.

If you register officiallegostore.com, put the Lego logo front and center, and start selling Lego, used or otherwise, I can assure you that you will get in trouble.
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