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Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

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Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#261

Post by Spivak »

codysan wrote: post #184
BurningFrog wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The possibly fraudulent part is that the customers is led to believe they're dealing with the restaurant.

This is the crux of the issue, especially when these services are happy to pass the buck when the delivery falls short and blame the restaurant.

I mean it's not fraud to blame your suppliers for problems that are the supplier's fault. It doesn't magically mean you're representing them. My local grocery store was out of tempeh because the factory they buy it from shut down due to a COVID scare. It doesn't mean that I suddenly think my grocery store is speaking as the supplier.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#262

Post by Chris2048 »

sumtechguy wrote: post #227
jberryman wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The restaurant can opt out of this I was at the bar of a local restaurant when some delivery driver (not sure if GH) came in to pick up an order. The (super busy) server said "we told you we don't want to participate in this...", clearly exasperated at this happening over and over. This is a restaurant that does a lot of catering, where they set the terms/fees. The driver started trying to "explain" how it's just t…

That sounds like a wasted opportunity. Drop a note into the bag with the food. 'hey cut out the middleman call us directly the prices are better!'

Don't bother with food, just put rocks in there.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#263

Post by jbay808 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #201
bckygldstn wrote: post #100

The lawsuit [1] lists the following Factual Allegations: • Gruhub tells consumers it’s working cooperatively with restaurants • Grubhub decides to add unaffiliated restaurants to its website and mobile apps without the restaurants’ permission • Grubhub’s unauthorized use of restaurants’ names and logos misleads consumers and harms restaurants • Restaurants have good reasons for choosing not to work with Grubhub ◦ Gru…

A counter point is that an individual is free to hire someone to go and pick up food from a restaurant on their behalf and it does not make any difference to the restaurant. I suspect that what restaurants fear, though, is that Grubhub is trying to grab as much marketshare as possible then once they are in a position of strength they'll go and demand a commission from the restaurants, or else...

A counterpoint is that if you hire someone to order and pick up food for you, and they place the wrong order, you won't blame the restaurant for your assistant's mistake.

GH is pretending to be the restaurant, so you get mad at the restaurant, not GH, when your order arrives late/cold/wrong. The restaurant didn't agree to this representation and you, the customer, weren't informed of it either.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#264

Post by Chris2048 »

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.

> It's basically paying the neighbor kid to go pick up some dinner for you

Except you know what your are doing. It isn't clear GH customers do.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#265

Post by Chris2048 »

jschwartzi wrote: post #176
nevi-me wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

> the only way to resolve the problem was to do a chargeback because neither merchant would take responsibility

I assume that hurt GH?

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#266

Post by kevincox »

jjk166 wrote: post #254
kevincox wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but if you manage to identify all of these delivery people and refuse them service I bet that they unlist you.

That's a fairly unreasonable assumption. Odds are the only thing a human at corporate will ever see is "Driver John Doe could not complete delivery, customer complained" Unless purely by chance the same person just so happens to see the same issue with the same restaurant a few times, it's very unlikely that they'ed notice a trend, nonetheless correctly deduce its cause. The person in charge of making sure deliveries…

Note I said every. It is very unlikely that you could manage it. But if their success rate for a particular store. dropped to zero I suspect they would notice sooner or later.

I also never said that it is a good way to accomplish this. I'm just pointing out that refusing the driver can be a way to get them to leave.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#267

Post by donarb »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #198
an_opabinia wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People order every day from non Amazon, non Amazon Prime sellers on Amazon. My feeling is end users know what they’re getting into as long as they’re informed the restaurant is non partnered, and your bosses just need to take the 5m to come up with a brand.

I’ve heard many stories about people’s orders taking longer than 2 days to arrive[a] (sometimes even 5+ weeks ). When asked, they say they ordered on Amazon and are upset at Amazon for it being late. After you explain that Amazon is also a marketplace, they understand why it’s late (it’s the seller’s fault), but they’re still upset at Amazon for not making it clear enough that it wasn’t going through Prime. [a]: I.E.…

People don’t realize that Amazon Prime doesn’t promise 2 day shipping from the time you order. It’s 2 day shipping from the time they fill your order, which could be a week or two later.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#268

Post by svrb »

jberryman wrote: post #189
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…

> The restaurant can opt out of this I was at the bar of a local restaurant when some delivery driver (not sure if GH) came in to pick up an order. The (super busy) server said "we told you we don't want to participate in this...", clearly exasperated at this happening over and over. This is a restaurant that does a lot of catering, where they set the terms/fees. The driver started trying to "explain" how it's just t…

Tell me something: if I'm sick at home, am I allowed to get a friend to go purchase take-out for me? And if I don't have someone who is able to do that for me, am I just supposed to starve?

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#269

Post by triceratops »

chrisseaton wrote: post #91
pc86 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your book example, I am buying a book from you . A better example would be you buy search ads for the author's name, create a website with a button "Contact the author" which goes to you, and then you sell me the book.

And I’m buying the food from GrubHub who buy the food from the restaurant. Like if I buy a book from a bookshop who buy it from the publisher.

The difference is you know you're buying from the bookshop and not from the publisher. And the publisher knows the bookshop is selling the books under its own name, not free-riding on the publisher's name and brand recognition.

Lots of people have already explained this to you on many different comment threads in many different ways.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#270

Post by oftenwrong »

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…

>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.

Slice does something similar. They set up fraudulent websites for local pizzerias, so they can direct people to order through their app:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346971

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