Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 288 posts

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#271

Post by mrmuagi »

punitxsmart wrote: post #237
loceng wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to recently book a hotel for a few nights. Hotels are mostly empty because of COVID. When I called to book a room it was clearly a script being followed with high pressure tactics including saying rooms are filling up quickly. Once I arrived at the hotel it looked mostly dead, and I when I asked the manager who was helping me behind the counter, he said they were at 10% capacity. It should also be illegal for b…

I agree with the sentiment. But, it should not be illegal to lie about your inventory. As long as you are receiving what is promised by them at a price that you both agree, its all fair game.

Deceiving the the other party is a market failure of asymmetrical information. Like being told about a car being all peaches but it's actually a lemon. It's unlawful in most developed countries and is a great way to get a fine and/or a prison sentence.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#272

Post by mgkimsal »

SilasX wrote: post #98
mgkimsal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a mortgage in 2005. Company had problems with fraudulent stuff and class action suit brought against them. Outside of whatever their behavior was that triggered the class action, they had poor service to me as an individual, so I'm not terribly surprised they probably cut many other corners (ethically/legally/etc). Anyway... I got my class action settlement checks yesterday. $71 and $74. w00t. EDIT: this was mo…

I agree that class actual settlements are Usually underwhelming, but were you specifically (even in expectation/probabilistically) hurt by those wrongs, and if so, what do you think is the more accurate figure for the harm you faced?

I don't know if I experienced direct harm from their actions. Certainly they had a culture of being ... not good, and that probably filtered down to customer service and processing, which hosed me over multiple times in the short time I had used them. They ended up costing me hundreds of dollars in fines and late fees because they mishandled escrow (and I was told it wasn't just me, they mishandled a lot in my county), so... ~$140 15 years later is probably not all the useful. A more accurate figure may have been, let's say, ~$1000 15 years ago, to cover the late fees/penalties along with my own time/stress figuring it all out (multiple trips and calls to county office, time away from work, etc).

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#273

Post by user5994461 »

TuringNYC wrote: post #60
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…

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 don't remember phone numbers being listed on hotels.com.

If you dig up the support number it is going to the hotels.com call center. It's not deceptive because they have your booking and your money, they can see your order and rebook you in another hotel which the direct hotel wouldn't be able to do (this happens regularly when there are problems like the hotel has no room).

If you have a corporate discount with a specific hotel you definitely need to deal with the website of the hotel directly, not hotels.com

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#274

Post by PopeDotNinja »

I’m not an expert in this area, and IANAL, so...

When I started a business (is the USA) that had a name that wasn’t mine, I needed to file a DBA (doing business as) form in my city. If GrubHub is representing themselves as SomeRestaurantIncorporated without some legal mechanism for doing so, like a DBA, I don’t see how they can justify it.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#275

Post by RandallBrown »

nobody9999 wrote: post #243
RandallBrown wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phone number thing is also only affiliated businesses. There would be no way to charge them if they weren't.

>The phone number thing is also only affiliated businesses. There would be no way to charge them if they weren't. Charge them for what? When a customer uses the GrubHub site/app to place an order, they are explicitly choosing Grubhub to service that order. If I choose to call a restaurant rather than use the GrubHub site/app, I'm explicitly choosing to deal with the restaurant directly. As such, GrubHub isn't entitle…

You're searching on Grubhub and then calling through their app or website. If that isn't a referral, I'm not sure what is.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#276

Post by pavel_lishin »

jdmichal wrote: post #24
pavel_lishin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this analogy, it would be more like you creating an eBay store called "Strand Books", listing the entire Strand Books' catalog, and then when someone purchases a book from you, popping into The Strand to get the book and shipping it to them. Except sometimes they're out of the book, and so the customer never receives it. Or you damage the book between the book store and the post office, and they receive a badly da…

But the customers are ordering the food from Grubhub , no? So why would they be confused that there's a middle-man?

The customers are ordering their food from the restaurant, via GrubHub.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#277

Post by nobody9999 »

RandallBrown wrote: post #275
nobody9999 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The phone number thing is also only affiliated businesses. There would be no way to charge them if they weren't. Charge them for what? When a customer uses the GrubHub site/app to place an order, they are explicitly choosing Grubhub to service that order. If I choose to call a restaurant rather than use the GrubHub site/app, I'm explicitly choosing to deal with the restaurant directly. As such, GrubHub isn't entitle…

You're searching on Grubhub and then calling through their app or website. If that isn't a referral, I'm not sure what is.

>You're searching on Grubhub and then calling through their app or website. If that isn't a referral, I'm not sure what is.

No. You're searching DDG or Google or Bing and a website for the restaurant comes up.

It says it's the restaurant. It has the menu and the phone number. But it's not the actual phone number of the restaurant. Nor is the website set up or endorsed by the restaurant.

Both are owned and controlled by a third party (in this case, GrubHub) which claims to be the restaurant, and by virtue of SEO-spamming the site to the top of the search results, you get that site instead of that of the actual restaurant.

I'm trying to decide whether or not you're ignorant or just being deliberately obtuse. Care to settle the controversy?

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#278

Post by o-__-o »

asdff wrote: post #203
loceng wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to recently book a hotel for a few nights. Hotels are mostly empty because of COVID. When I called to book a room it was clearly a script being followed with high pressure tactics including saying rooms are filling up quickly. Once I arrived at the hotel it looked mostly dead, and I when I asked the manager who was helping me behind the counter, he said they were at 10% capacity. It should also be illegal for b…

So many websites resort to this, frankly it's embarrasing used car salesmen level tactics. My favorite is the petition websites like change.org. The ticking of people signing the petition before your eyes is entirely artificial. Refresh the page and the count resets.

Oh so like reddit today!

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#280

Post by brad_Saggy »

loceng wrote: post #154
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 had to recently book a hotel for a few nights. Hotels are mostly empty because of COVID. When I called to book a room it was clearly a script being followed with high pressure tactics including saying rooms are filling up quickly. Once I arrived at the hotel it looked mostly dead, and I when I asked the manager who was helping me behind the counter, he said they were at 10% capacity. It should also be illegal for b…

I had learned after moving to the US (pretty much any western country), it is all about "wordplay". What the agent did was not illegal. What they said could be true in their own terms.
Post reply on HN