19 ms·

People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee

462 points by lemonberry 6y ago

tick_tock_tick 6y ago
Every article I read about restaurants just seems to reinforce that they are powered by their owners hopes and dreams rather than any financial or business literacy. It makes then ripe targets for exploitation.
- abhiyerra 6y ago
  Restaurants and mom and pop grocery stores/convenience stores are very low margin, super long hours, and stressful. Furthermore, it isn’t just places like Grubhub but also local governments with weird zoning laws and expectations that really exploit these businesses with random fees. (My parents had a grocery store. They lost it during the previous recession.)
  - tick_tock_tick 6y ago
    My statement might have come across as harsh I understand that these kinds of businesses take a huge amount of blood, sweat, and tears; Especially since the ROI is often not really that great. It takes all the energy you have to run just the shop let alone comply with the city, county, state, and country regulations, source inventory, promote yourself, etc. It doesn't surprise me they are getting exploited with the overwhelming mountain of stuff they need to manage. The small margins mean it's very hard to hire staff to distribute work too.
  - rahimnathwani 6y ago
    Restaurants and grocery/convenience stores are a bit different. Yes, owners of both are signing up for long hours and poor pay. But the motivation is often different: - if you buy or start a grocery store, you know you're buying yourself a job; you won't get rich, but you will make more money than you would working for someone else, e.g. if your options are limited due to discrimination, lack of fluency with local language, literacy etc. - if you open a restaurant, you might me doing it for all the same reasons as above (think an undifferentiated Chinese restaurants, or a local pizza place). But many people open restaurants because they are into food, because they think the way they make food is better than existing restaurants, and because they think the margins are going to make the restaurant ultra-profitable. (My parents also had a grocery store.)
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    > Restaurants and mom and pop grocery stores/convenience stores are very low margin, super long hours, and stressful. Sorry to hijack off of your comment - none of what I say is meant as a negative about you or your parents. I've seen two types of people start these: 1. People from low income backgrounds who don't have many other options and don't have the means to gain good knowledge. I sympathize with them. 2. People who are somewhat wealthier (have a good degree, work for an engineering company, etc) who complain about how poorly people are running restaurants and how poor the food is and know for certain that they can run a restaurant that makes the food really well and everyone will come to their restaurant and business will be good. Very common for this to be about ethnic restaurants but doesn't need to be. I have little sympathy for this group. They really should know better. I've talked to them about it before they put a huge chunk of their savings into starting a restaurant. They typically do no background research. They don't ask other business owners. They have no idea about the margins (hint - the other restaurants who make food poorly do it for an economic reason - not because they can't find good chefs). Recently one of them opened a restaurant near my home. And their food was great - I would put it in the top 2 of their category in the city. But their prices were too high. Normally I order this type of food once in a while when I don't want to cook or am busy. But the price was beyond that threshold. I went there only when special friends visited me in town and took them there. And not many people went there. The reviews everywhere (Yelp, etc) were awesome. But people didn't go there. Partly because of prices, but partly because of the location. Why did they pick that location? Because there's a big company in the neighborhood. Surely there are plenty of well paid people there who would come for lunch? Yes there are and no they won't. Over the years living there I know this plaza well. It's a graveyard for restaurants - most of them likely relying on employees of that company eating there. All these guys had to do was spend time in the restaurants in that plaza prior to signing the lease to get an idea. "Ah, but they don't go to those restaurants because their food is crap!" Yes, the food is crap. No, that's not the reason. And then there's the food. Great food they made. But they weren't making a profit. So did they revise their menu to focus on items that would give good margins? No. They raised the prices. Fewer people came. They raised the prices again. Even fewer people came. This spiraled out of control. Within a year they had shut down. One of the co-owners told me there wasn't a month where they made a profit. I asked "Did you talk to any restaurant owners for their advice prior to opening?" Nope. If the food is great, people will come. These guys work (or worked) pretty good jobs prior to opening the business - sometimes in senior management roles. Is that how decisions were made at their companies?
- stainforth 6y ago
  No its the landowners who can hold them over the barrel for their highest overhead: rent. And those same landowners are able to do that because they have enough wealth to wait on the next person who will initially pay the high rent.
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    > No its the landowners who can hold them over the barrel for their highest overhead: rent. And those same landowners are able to do that because they have enough wealth to wait on the next person who will initially pay the high rent. Yes and no. There are landowners with a lot of wealth. The majority of landowners have less wealth (and will always have less wealth) than a typical FAANG engineer. I started looking heavily into real estate last year and got to meet many of these people. The average commercial plaza in most cities? Not owned by a wealthy person - and indeed some of the business owners on the plaza are wealthier. A lot of these owners don't make enough out of it to make a living and still have a full time job. They do it because it's passive income - almost no effort. Plaza owners typically don't pay for any maintenance. They don't pay property taxes. All this is passed on to the businesses in exchange for relatively low rents. As long as he collects enough rent to pay the loan, and has some extra left over, he's happy. It's free money. (And 90-99% of land owners don't own the property free and clear. The majority of them owe more than half the value to some bank or other. That should tell you who really is making the money).
- VMisTheWay 6y ago
  I'm totally with you on this. People pay other money to prepare food? It's not trivial either, restaurant food is 7 to 20x more expensive than home cooked (source- Efficiency Is Everything) The only other business model for a restaurant is to sell drugs(aka alcohol and caffeine). Then your business model exploits customer addictions. I think we've spent far too much money/resources/manpower on lazy food habits.
  - danpalmer 6y ago
    > restaurant food is 7 to 20x more expensive than home cooked I suspect Efficiency is Everything is measuring a very different thing. They seem to focus on calories per dollar, which is not how restaurants or home cooks typically think. The rule of thumb used in the restaurant industry is 30/30/30/10. 30% for food, labour, rent, and 10% margin. Anecdotally, for dinner I spend about £3 a meal to cook at home, and could probably buy that meal out for £8-12. As Efficiency is Everything says, you can live on $1.50 a day, but it requires using only a very limited subset of ingredients and allows little room for preference. For some people this makes no difference, for most it's a huge handicap, which is why it's limited to the min-maxing fringes.
  - mennis16 6y ago
    I'm not sure laziness is the main factor here though. I suppose it depends where you are ordering from, but I enjoy picking up from restaurants still largely because I enjoy the food and would not be able to recreate it. In some cases it introduces me to new flavor combos that I wouldn't have tried otherwise and maybe will eventually make its way into my cooking. Hell, I even just occasionally crave McDonalds. If I were feeling lazy I would have Soylent or throw together a sandwich with whatever is in the house, it feels like more effort to place the McD order than do that. Food is a large source of enjoyment for a lot of people, even removing the social benefits of in-person restaurants, I don't think it is a waste. Although certainly many restaurant owners would benefit from some business training. I also think you'll find you could say the same thing about a lot of life chores- people pay other people to sew? People pay other people to mow their lawn? People pay other people to trim their hair? And so on. A lot of these things could be done sufficiently yourself, but 1) they will generally be done better by the professional and 2) as these things pile up the total time spent will become a legitimate burden. I found it interesting to read about the daily schedules of housewives back in the 50s or so, some of their tasks could be automated now or would be considered unnecessary, but even adjusting to be a bit more modern it sounded like a difficult full time job. And there are increasingly less people "employed" in this sector. So I don't know why I see so many objections to outsourcing something like cooking (not even all the time).
gruglife 6y ago
I love this paragraph from the pizza arbitrage article, link below. If capitalism is driven by a search for profit, the food delivery business confuses the hell out of me. Every platform loses money. Restaurants feel like they're getting screwed. Delivery drivers are poster children for gig economy problems. Customers get annoyed about delivery fees. https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitra...
- calvinmorrison 6y ago
  The lure of more business for local restaurants. An uptick in orders and free advertising could certainly help! The lure of a weekend job for drivers. I've done it and made out pretty well on my motorcycle for a few hours on the weekend. consumers love apps and they love being able to have visibility into the status of their orders. They want to shop online for food and have it appear without of phone call, or to discover new restaurants around them. Sometimes they have favorite sit down restaurants that aren't take out spots - but know they might have a listing on a fancier food delivery service. App creators: take a cut off of everything on the top without actually inventing or doing anything. A logistics company elsewhere caught charging this much would be laughed out of the room but in a new and exciting field there's a lot of room for markup. Cheers!
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    > A logistics company elsewhere caught charging this much would be laughed out of the room but in a new and exciting field there's a lot of room for markup. I would argue that they are also the owner of many of the customers. DoorDash owns me as a customer simply because when I am hungry, I turn on the app and select from one of the offerings.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Grubhub’s CEO said on an earnings call that customers are “promiscuous” and not demonstrating loyalty to a single dining app, so while you have your anecdote, it doesn’t appear to apply across larger sample sizes. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-grubhub-results/grubhub-blames-promiscuous-diners-for-slowing-growth-shares-sink-30-idUSKBN1X72DD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-grubhub-results/grubhub-b...
MaintenanceMode 6y ago
It's disheartening that there's so much due diligence required just to conduct the most basic transactions right now. I have a narrow list of vetted restaurants, where I understand the costs and to the business, the delivery model, the safety (food handling and Covid precautions), and I only take out from these particular places. I tried a new place recently, only to find out I had been duped by Grub-hub, even though I thought I had placed the order on the restaurant's own site (or so I thought). When I went to pickup, the owner set me straight and gave me his card with the correct number. He showed me that I had paid an additional $25 in markup, as well as the fees he was charged, and this was a pickup!
- rickpmg 6y ago
  >I tried a new place recently, only to find out I had been duped by Grub-hub So you found a new restaurant, the restaurant found a new customer, and grub-hub is cut out of the (future) picture. Didn't grubhub earn that commission in this case? I have no love (or hate) for grub-hub... but it seems like a business hired a salesperson on commission, knowing full well the parameters of the deal, and then gets upset when they actually bring in sales. In most other industries the restaurant would be considered the 'bad guy' for trying to take the business direct and cheating the rep out of a commission.
  - nickff 6y ago
    Thanks for offering a refreshing take on the situation; I had not heard anything like this view, and find it very interesting.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    A commission isn’t earned when you’re fraudulently impersonating a business.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > when you’re fraudulently impersonating a business The article suggests diners are calling numbers from the GrubHub app. If that’s the case, the commission is earned per the agreement. Practically, the app provided discoverability. When it appears on Google or Yelp results, assuming Google or Yelp aren’t being compensated and disclosing this relationship, that is a problem.
mataug 6y ago
> “If a customer calls to place a coffee order, we’re paying a $6.42 fee — for a coffee.” This is wrong ! Plain and simple. $6.42 is probably more than the cost of the coffee. Here are somethings you as a consumer can do to help, 1. If possible visit the restaurant personally, and order to go 2. Find the restaurant's phone number on their website / Facebook / Instagram / twitter page. 3. Leave a tip I've found that yelp / google phone numbers can be in-accurate or lead to a proxy number.
- RileyJames 6y ago
  You can also spread the message to your friends and family. That Grubhub, uber eats, etc are not the best way to support a local business, and that they conduct these deceptive tactics. I’ve had friends in the past week state “I’m supporting local tonight” and then continue on to state they ordered via uber eats. They’re upset to know, but thankful to be informed, that ordering via uber eats doesn’t actually support local in the way they believe they are. The whole fake websites / fake phone numbers just adds to the bad taste, supporting local does not align with supporting deceptive middle men.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  > This is wrong ! Plain and simple. $6.42 is probably more than the cost of the coffee. While I think they shouldn't be charging nearly that much, that's a misleading way to look at it. The charge is based on the average. When you step back and look at the entire month, it's going to be some negotiated percent of the total. For some orders it will be way under, and for some it will be way over, but it will balance out. When you order just a coffee it drags down the average. Then, example numbers, the fee next month might be 3 cents lower across 200 orders. This saves $6, making the net fee $0.42
- foogazi 6y ago
  > “If a customer calls to place a coffee order, we’re paying a $6.42 fee — for a coffee.” This is based on the contract the restaurant has with grubhub, uber eats, etc - if the terms are not favorable why not cancel the agreement ? Seems they want others to fix their self-inflicted damage
schoolornot 6y ago
If GrubHub brings awareness to your restaurant that turns into an order why shouldn't they be compensated? You may not like the commission. Don't like it, leave. The only case I think is a step too far is if GrubHub uses their search rank to display results above a non-participating restaurant and attempts to extort commissions by displaying a proxy number anyway. Is there any evidence of this? If a customer decides to store the proxy number in their address book thinking that it's a direct line and GrubHub charges the restaurant for each call, then that's a bit scummy.
- yeswecatan 6y ago
  The redirect number can also appear higher in Google search results (including the Google panel for that business) than the restaurant’s own line. This leads some customers to call it even if they don’t intend to use Grubhub.
- lakerz16 6y ago
  If GH takes a 25% cut, then they need to be adding 25% more revenue to the takeout market. I would bet good money they are not. Instead, they are paying for ad space to siphon the traffic of already hungry customers looking to order from a restaurant. GH then shows the numbers to the restaurant and says "Look how much business GH brings you. You need to pay us for this" In many cases they are extorting restaurants over what would be organic web traffic. In these cases they are not adding new revenue to the industry, and are instead choking the restaurants that already operate on thin margins.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  In all cases where GrubHub has the first result in my area, they didn't do anything to "make me aware" of the restaurant I'm trying to order from. All they're doing in many cases is making it a pain in the ass for me to order via the restaurant's own delivery page.
- mdoms 6y ago
  So the only case where you think it's a step too far is if the company is doing the thing that this article is about them doing?
obibring 6y ago
Its astonishing delivery services have the depravity to dupe customers trying to help a hurting industry. If you live in NYC or SF, I built a browser extension that will help you place delivery orders directly with local restaurants. It currently compares the price of your delivery across all delivery services, and within the next week, will link you to local restaurant websites if one is available. For those interested in checking, the link is https://platerapp.app.link/Gsxltl3d06 https://platerapp.app.link/Gsxltl3d06
- ngoldberg 6y ago
  i've been using this in nyc and saved 16 dollars across 3 orders which is a lot more than i have with honey. would really like to use the direct order feature so restaurants can benefit more.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  This is a great service also: https://www.eatnyc.org/ https://www.eatnyc.org/
- myaccount54673 6y ago
  Awesome idea - can I ask how broadly how it works? I would have thought pricing up a specific order on multiple apps programmatically would be difficult considering all the bot restrictions and coupons they have in place
- zhoujianfu 6y ago
  Awesome, I had exactly this idea.. you should consider expanding (if you don’t already) to direct from the restaurant services (e.g. Yoshinoya is available on doordash but also does their own delivery for way less). And then charge $1 per order and raise $1b!
- TamirG 6y ago
  This is great. Thanks for helping local restaurants!
- cmbailey 6y ago
  This is awesome. Please provide a box to signup for email updates - I'd like to find out if you ever release a Firefox version.
macintux 6y ago
Discussion from a couple of weeks ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23194727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23194727
mark-r 6y ago
So how do you avoid calling a 3rd party when Google won't show you the correct phone number?
- yedava 6y ago
  Most restaurants have a website. Their real phone number will be listed there.
  - splonk 6y ago
    Just try to make sure you've found the real website and not one of Grubhub's autogenerated fake sites. They all look pretty similar so you'll be able to identify them after you've seen a few, but it's easy to mistakenly think you're at the real site the first time. https://www.eater.com/2019/6/28/19171476/grubhub-seamless-cybersquatting-restaurant-web-domains https://www.eater.com/2019/6/28/19171476/grubhub-seamless-cy...
    - mark-r 6y ago
      There's nothing to keep Grubhub from changing their site design. And someone else might get the same bright idea. So learning what a fake site looks like isn't going to be a long term solution.
  - mark-r 6y ago
    I wouldn't say "most". The small local restaurants that you really want not to get taken by predatory schemes are the ones least likely to have a web presence.
suyash 6y ago
I use yelp to see reviews and menu but call directly to place a "togo" order.
sequoia 6y ago
Can Grubhub do this phone scamming thing if the restaurants don’t agree to work with Grubhub? If not, it’s on the restaurants to figure out they’re being scammed and cut off Grubhub. I agree it’s extremely sleazy but if restaurants opt into it what can you do? Regarding online ordering: restaurants need to decide if this is a space they want to be in (to grow business by allowing another channel for ordering) then research the field, pick a vendor with a fee model they like (or build their own!) and get actively into the game. For better or worse this is like having a phone number however-many years ago. You can choose not to but the technology is getting more and more popular so if you want to “keep up” you have to learn a new trick. There are some up-front flat-fee vendors out there that will allow you to set up your menu for online order at your domain. And if you don’t want to spend the time, Grubhub will do it for you for a fee, and if you don’t want to pay the fee or spend the time, then cross your fingers and hope your customers are ok ordering by phone. But online ordering is not going to come out of nothing at no cost.
- CharlesW 6y ago
  > Can Grubhub do this phone scamming thing if the restaurants don’t agree to work with Grubhub? I don't know whether they (legally) can, but they do. https://www.eater.com/2019/10/30/20940107/grubhub-to-add-restaurants-without-permission-like-postmates https://www.eater.com/2019/10/30/20940107/grubhub-to-add-res...
  - sequoia 6y ago
    “ In July, New Food Economy reported that Grubhub was buying restaurant web domains without restaurants’ knowledge or consent, and though Grubhub argued it’s technically allowed to do that in the contract, it was still a bad look.” “In the contract” implies the restaurants are opting to work with Grubhub and pay them fees. As for “non-partner” listings, how can Grubhub charge a fee if the order is phoned in or payed over the counter like a normal order? So I don’t think that situation is one where restaurants are paying Grubhub any fees (though Grubhub is surely charging customers fees and possibly marking up menu items, the latter of which I agree is shady and should be stopped.) I am happy to be mad at Grubhub but I’m not condemning them for charging a restaurant a fee the restaurant agreed in writing to pay. Why did the coffee shop in TFA agree to pay $6.76 or whatever per call??
qwerty456127 6y ago
People should ask where who are they speaking to and if the operator lies they should take legal action.
- bdowling 6y ago
  There is no operator. The Grubhub-owned number will ring through to the restaurant, but will log the call so that Grubhub can get its commission.
  - huhtenberg 6y ago
    The restaurant then should ask what number the customer was calling and offer a callback if it wasn't a direct call.
    - nmeofthestate 6y ago
      That's presumably against the terms of service they agreed when they decided to work with GrubHub. The real fix would be for the restaurant to stop using GrubHub. Unless I'm really misunderstanding what's going on here.
caymanjim 6y ago
It's possible to do this without resorting to the sleazy practices of Grubhub. I used to work for Slice, which provides order-taking (but notably not delivery) for mom-and-pop pizza shops. They don't add people to the platform without their permission. They only charge $1/order. They help restaurants digitize their menus, keep prices up to date, and they take orders digitally and over the phone. They have a large and responsive customer service department. It's all up front, honest, and affordable. It's not a direct comparison with Grubhub, since the restaurants still do the deliveries themselves, but it's a good business model and an honest company.
- exogeny 6y ago
  Ilir is a real one. I hope he keeps crushing it.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  The "problem" is that it doesn't "scale" and there is not much opportunity for "growth" and "engagement", so VC scum will never do something legitimate like this and will instead attempt fraudulent practices like impersonating the restaurant's website and outranking them.
  - hckr_news 6y ago
    Doesn’t Ycombinator constantly tell startups to “do things that don’t scale”
- GhostVII 6y ago
  People were previously claiming on Hacker News that Slice was registering websites on behalf of pizza shops, and then claiming the business as theirs on Google Maps [0]. Is this false? One user claimed that the businesses were not aware of this [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349819 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16824992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16824992
  - caymanjim 6y ago
paul7986 6y ago
Why are so many popular startups run and funded by sleazebags... anything and everthing to win! Digusting!
- dylz 6y ago
  Grubhub is nearly two decades old.
HaloZero 6y ago
I'm wondering if they changed their policy in SF or if the restaurants I looked up just have opted out of this. I checked Phat Philly (all phone numbers on their website, grubhub, yelp, and google maps were the same). Same with Sultan Kebab & Gryo King (I couldn't find a number on their site but everyone else had the same number)
enumjorge 6y ago
> The redirect number can also appear higher in Google search results (including the Google panel for that business) than the restaurant’s own line. This seems like a pretty fundamental failure on Google's part. The whole value proposition of Google is that they'll find you the best answer for you search, not just 'an' answer that could be misinformation. This is the problem with the way their ranking algorithms tend to favor information aggregators. It's easy for second-hand sites to out-rank the source of truth. It reminds me of the way Pinterest has degraded the Google image search experience by polluting the results with their own low-quality entries. Now I get that automating the gathering of this information must not be easy. How do you verify the legitimacy of any one page claiming to be the site for a restaurant? What I don't understand is how Google can see that sites like Grubhub are exploiting the ranking algorithm to re-route users, but they don't do anything about it. Why don't they penalize those sites?
- Wingman4l7 6y ago
  IIRC, this was also an issue during the 2018 cryptocurrency rush -- fraudulent support phone #s for big exchanges / companies like Coinbase would show up higher in the rankings than the legitimate number. Frustratingly and amusingly, the fraudulent phone numbers were supposedly better-staffed and more responsive.
  - VMisTheWay 6y ago
    Because fraudulent people don't actually provide value, where coinbase needs to confirm identity.
tehlike 6y ago
I'm surprised chownow is not mentioned. Decent product with Fixed upfront pricing
vxNsr 6y ago
Yeah for this reason I always try to just go the company's website and call them. some redirect me to chownow, which is ok, as long as I know that you'd rather let them handle the order instead of the phone.
sidhanthp 6y ago
I have instantly gained respect for Buzzfeed's reporting.
dejawu 6y ago
It's even more infuriating knowing that Grubhub is running these emotional "support local restaurant" ads that imply that using their service is somehow a form of activism while they steal from those very same businesses.
dkdk8283 6y ago
This is MITM and in many respects extremely unethical. I admit that the premise is clever but it’s little more than ripping people off. There’s no value add to the customer that I can see.
- BelleOfTheBall 6y ago
  It's supposed to help restaurants with admin and delivery stuff, which, in turn, would make it easier for customers to order and maybe even provide faster delivery but, in its current implementation, it's just a way to skim money off of the restaurants.
quickthrower2 6y ago
What if you call the Grubhub number from a prison phone!
ilaksh 6y ago
The solution is public peer to peer platforms and protocols.
LatteLazy 6y ago
So much signalling on here...
carbonatedmilk 6y ago
So confused. Do you not have tort law in the US? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off
monadic2 6y ago
All of these crowdsourcing apps (Uber, doordash, drizly, instacart) charge about 10-100x what you would think it would take to deliver the service.
a3n 6y ago
These restaurants signed up for a voluntary man in the middle attack. The reporter should have asked why these restaurants don't quit grub hub.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
joncrane 6y ago
Don't most people use Google Maps to find nearby restaurants? Does Google Maps ever give the wrong phone number to order from? I know using the phone is kinda 1900s but sometimes I like to ask about a certain dish I'm trying and stuff. Sometimes the person talking to me is a bit gruff but I tell myself it's OK because at least I'm not giving any money to the delivery companies. I hope it goes without saying that I always pick up. Any excuse to get out of the house, especially on a work day!
andrewla 6y ago
Why don't the restaurants just dramatically inflate their prices to accomodate the Grubhub fee? I don't understand why it would be better to contact the restaurant directly for the restaurant -- they benefit from Grubhub too, and if they don't want to pay the cost they should just pass it on to the customers. The restaurants have voluntarily entered into this arrangement. If they can't afford to operate with the fees on top of their regular prices, then they have to increase their prices.
izzydata 6y ago
If you accidentally called GrubHub and asked if you were speaking directly to the restaurant, would they lie to you?
- eyeinthepyramid 6y ago
  From what I can tell, they connect the caller directly to the restaurant, but charge the restaurant a fee for their connection "service".
greyhair 6y ago
I am only getting takeout from places I know. I have there menus in a drawer by the fridge. That way, I know I am calling directly. Much of the gig economy is just shyster business, wedging themselves between actual customers and actual providers, and taking far more than the actual value they provide.
jfrumar 6y ago
Even worse than just the misleading practices - we've been unable to connect through these proxied phone numbers at all. We just get an out of service tone. Both at&t and T-Mobile. I have been assuming it's because too many people are calling. Next time I pickup, I'll ask for a direct line.
JohnL4 6y ago
As soon as I hear "your call may be monitored to ensure AWESOMENESS!" I know money is changing hands.

462 points by lemonberry 6y ago

Every article I read about restaurants just seems to reinforce that they are powered by their owners hopes and dreams rather than any financial or business literacy. It makes then ripe targets for exploitation.

abhiyerra 6y ago
Restaurants and mom and pop grocery stores/convenience stores are very low margin, super long hours, and stressful. Furthermore, it isn’t just places like Grubhub but also local governments with weird zoning laws and expectations that really exploit these businesses with random fees. (My parents had a grocery store. They lost it during the previous recession.)
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  My statement might have come across as harsh I understand that these kinds of businesses take a huge amount of blood, sweat, and tears; Especially since the ROI is often not really that great. It takes all the energy you have to run just the shop let alone comply with the city, county, state, and country regulations, source inventory, promote yourself, etc. It doesn't surprise me they are getting exploited with the overwhelming mountain of stuff they need to manage. The small margins mean it's very hard to hire staff to distribute work too.
- rahimnathwani 6y ago
  Restaurants and grocery/convenience stores are a bit different. Yes, owners of both are signing up for long hours and poor pay. But the motivation is often different: - if you buy or start a grocery store, you know you're buying yourself a job; you won't get rich, but you will make more money than you would working for someone else, e.g. if your options are limited due to discrimination, lack of fluency with local language, literacy etc. - if you open a restaurant, you might me doing it for all the same reasons as above (think an undifferentiated Chinese restaurants, or a local pizza place). But many people open restaurants because they are into food, because they think the way they make food is better than existing restaurants, and because they think the margins are going to make the restaurant ultra-profitable. (My parents also had a grocery store.)
- BeetleB 6y ago
  > Restaurants and mom and pop grocery stores/convenience stores are very low margin, super long hours, and stressful. Sorry to hijack off of your comment - none of what I say is meant as a negative about you or your parents. I've seen two types of people start these: 1. People from low income backgrounds who don't have many other options and don't have the means to gain good knowledge. I sympathize with them. 2. People who are somewhat wealthier (have a good degree, work for an engineering company, etc) who complain about how poorly people are running restaurants and how poor the food is and know for certain that they can run a restaurant that makes the food really well and everyone will come to their restaurant and business will be good. Very common for this to be about ethnic restaurants but doesn't need to be. I have little sympathy for this group. They really should know better. I've talked to them about it before they put a huge chunk of their savings into starting a restaurant. They typically do no background research. They don't ask other business owners. They have no idea about the margins (hint - the other restaurants who make food poorly do it for an economic reason - not because they can't find good chefs). Recently one of them opened a restaurant near my home. And their food was great - I would put it in the top 2 of their category in the city. But their prices were too high. Normally I order this type of food once in a while when I don't want to cook or am busy. But the price was beyond that threshold. I went there only when special friends visited me in town and took them there. And not many people went there. The reviews everywhere (Yelp, etc) were awesome. But people didn't go there. Partly because of prices, but partly because of the location. Why did they pick that location? Because there's a big company in the neighborhood. Surely there are plenty of well paid people there who would come for lunch? Yes there are and no they won't. Over the years living there I know this plaza well. It's a graveyard for restaurants - most of them likely relying on employees of that company eating there. All these guys had to do was spend time in the restaurants in that plaza prior to signing the lease to get an idea. "Ah, but they don't go to those restaurants because their food is crap!" Yes, the food is crap. No, that's not the reason. And then there's the food. Great food they made. But they weren't making a profit. So did they revise their menu to focus on items that would give good margins? No. They raised the prices. Fewer people came. They raised the prices again. Even fewer people came. This spiraled out of control. Within a year they had shut down. One of the co-owners told me there wasn't a month where they made a profit. I asked "Did you talk to any restaurant owners for their advice prior to opening?" Nope. If the food is great, people will come. These guys work (or worked) pretty good jobs prior to opening the business - sometimes in senior management roles. Is that how decisions were made at their companies?
stainforth 6y ago
No its the landowners who can hold them over the barrel for their highest overhead: rent. And those same landowners are able to do that because they have enough wealth to wait on the next person who will initially pay the high rent.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  > No its the landowners who can hold them over the barrel for their highest overhead: rent. And those same landowners are able to do that because they have enough wealth to wait on the next person who will initially pay the high rent. Yes and no. There are landowners with a lot of wealth. The majority of landowners have less wealth (and will always have less wealth) than a typical FAANG engineer. I started looking heavily into real estate last year and got to meet many of these people. The average commercial plaza in most cities? Not owned by a wealthy person - and indeed some of the business owners on the plaza are wealthier. A lot of these owners don't make enough out of it to make a living and still have a full time job. They do it because it's passive income - almost no effort. Plaza owners typically don't pay for any maintenance. They don't pay property taxes. All this is passed on to the businesses in exchange for relatively low rents. As long as he collects enough rent to pay the loan, and has some extra left over, he's happy. It's free money. (And 90-99% of land owners don't own the property free and clear. The majority of them owe more than half the value to some bank or other. That should tell you who really is making the money).
VMisTheWay 6y ago
I'm totally with you on this. People pay other money to prepare food? It's not trivial either, restaurant food is 7 to 20x more expensive than home cooked (source- Efficiency Is Everything) The only other business model for a restaurant is to sell drugs(aka alcohol and caffeine). Then your business model exploits customer addictions. I think we've spent far too much money/resources/manpower on lazy food habits.
- danpalmer 6y ago
  > restaurant food is 7 to 20x more expensive than home cooked I suspect Efficiency is Everything is measuring a very different thing. They seem to focus on calories per dollar, which is not how restaurants or home cooks typically think. The rule of thumb used in the restaurant industry is 30/30/30/10. 30% for food, labour, rent, and 10% margin. Anecdotally, for dinner I spend about £3 a meal to cook at home, and could probably buy that meal out for £8-12. As Efficiency is Everything says, you can live on $1.50 a day, but it requires using only a very limited subset of ingredients and allows little room for preference. For some people this makes no difference, for most it's a huge handicap, which is why it's limited to the min-maxing fringes.
- mennis16 6y ago
  I'm not sure laziness is the main factor here though. I suppose it depends where you are ordering from, but I enjoy picking up from restaurants still largely because I enjoy the food and would not be able to recreate it. In some cases it introduces me to new flavor combos that I wouldn't have tried otherwise and maybe will eventually make its way into my cooking. Hell, I even just occasionally crave McDonalds. If I were feeling lazy I would have Soylent or throw together a sandwich with whatever is in the house, it feels like more effort to place the McD order than do that. Food is a large source of enjoyment for a lot of people, even removing the social benefits of in-person restaurants, I don't think it is a waste. Although certainly many restaurant owners would benefit from some business training. I also think you'll find you could say the same thing about a lot of life chores- people pay other people to sew? People pay other people to mow their lawn? People pay other people to trim their hair? And so on. A lot of these things could be done sufficiently yourself, but 1) they will generally be done better by the professional and 2) as these things pile up the total time spent will become a legitimate burden. I found it interesting to read about the daily schedules of housewives back in the 50s or so, some of their tasks could be automated now or would be considered unnecessary, but even adjusting to be a bit more modern it sounded like a difficult full time job. And there are increasingly less people "employed" in this sector. So I don't know why I see so many objections to outsourcing something like cooking (not even all the time).

gruglife 6y ago

I love this paragraph from the pizza arbitrage article, link below. If capitalism is driven by a search for profit, the food delivery business confuses the hell out of me. Every platform loses money. Restaurants feel like they're getting screwed. Delivery drivers are poster children for gig economy problems. Customers get annoyed about delivery fees. https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitra...

calvinmorrison 6y ago
The lure of more business for local restaurants. An uptick in orders and free advertising could certainly help! The lure of a weekend job for drivers. I've done it and made out pretty well on my motorcycle for a few hours on the weekend. consumers love apps and they love being able to have visibility into the status of their orders. They want to shop online for food and have it appear without of phone call, or to discover new restaurants around them. Sometimes they have favorite sit down restaurants that aren't take out spots - but know they might have a listing on a fancier food delivery service. App creators: take a cut off of everything on the top without actually inventing or doing anything. A logistics company elsewhere caught charging this much would be laughed out of the room but in a new and exciting field there's a lot of room for markup. Cheers!
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > A logistics company elsewhere caught charging this much would be laughed out of the room but in a new and exciting field there's a lot of room for markup. I would argue that they are also the owner of many of the customers. DoorDash owns me as a customer simply because when I am hungry, I turn on the app and select from one of the offerings.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Grubhub’s CEO said on an earnings call that customers are “promiscuous” and not demonstrating loyalty to a single dining app, so while you have your anecdote, it doesn’t appear to apply across larger sample sizes. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-grubhub-results/grubhub-blames-promiscuous-diners-for-slowing-growth-shares-sink-30-idUSKBN1X72DD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-grubhub-results/grubhub-b...

MaintenanceMode 6y ago

It's disheartening that there's so much due diligence required just to conduct the most basic transactions right now. I have a narrow list of vetted restaurants, where I understand the costs and to the business, the delivery model, the safety (food handling and Covid precautions), and I only take out from these particular places. I tried a new place recently, only to find out I had been duped by Grub-hub, even though I thought I had placed the order on the restaurant's own site (or so I thought). When I went to pickup, the owner set me straight and gave me his card with the correct number. He showed me that I had paid an additional $25 in markup, as well as the fees he was charged, and this was a pickup!

rickpmg 6y ago
>I tried a new place recently, only to find out I had been duped by Grub-hub So you found a new restaurant, the restaurant found a new customer, and grub-hub is cut out of the (future) picture. Didn't grubhub earn that commission in this case? I have no love (or hate) for grub-hub... but it seems like a business hired a salesperson on commission, knowing full well the parameters of the deal, and then gets upset when they actually bring in sales. In most other industries the restaurant would be considered the 'bad guy' for trying to take the business direct and cheating the rep out of a commission.
- nickff 6y ago
  Thanks for offering a refreshing take on the situation; I had not heard anything like this view, and find it very interesting.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  A commission isn’t earned when you’re fraudulently impersonating a business.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > when you’re fraudulently impersonating a business The article suggests diners are calling numbers from the GrubHub app. If that’s the case, the commission is earned per the agreement. Practically, the app provided discoverability. When it appears on Google or Yelp results, assuming Google or Yelp aren’t being compensated and disclosing this relationship, that is a problem.

mataug 6y ago

> “If a customer calls to place a coffee order, we’re paying a $6.42 fee — for a coffee.” This is wrong ! Plain and simple. $6.42 is probably more than the cost of the coffee. Here are somethings you as a consumer can do to help, 1. If possible visit the restaurant personally, and order to go 2. Find the restaurant's phone number on their website / Facebook / Instagram / twitter page. 3. Leave a tip I've found that yelp / google phone numbers can be in-accurate or lead to a proxy number.

RileyJames 6y ago
You can also spread the message to your friends and family. That Grubhub, uber eats, etc are not the best way to support a local business, and that they conduct these deceptive tactics. I’ve had friends in the past week state “I’m supporting local tonight” and then continue on to state they ordered via uber eats. They’re upset to know, but thankful to be informed, that ordering via uber eats doesn’t actually support local in the way they believe they are. The whole fake websites / fake phone numbers just adds to the bad taste, supporting local does not align with supporting deceptive middle men.
Dylan16807 6y ago
> This is wrong ! Plain and simple. $6.42 is probably more than the cost of the coffee. While I think they shouldn't be charging nearly that much, that's a misleading way to look at it. The charge is based on the average. When you step back and look at the entire month, it's going to be some negotiated percent of the total. For some orders it will be way under, and for some it will be way over, but it will balance out. When you order just a coffee it drags down the average. Then, example numbers, the fee next month might be 3 cents lower across 200 orders. This saves $6, making the net fee $0.42
foogazi 6y ago
> “If a customer calls to place a coffee order, we’re paying a $6.42 fee — for a coffee.” This is based on the contract the restaurant has with grubhub, uber eats, etc - if the terms are not favorable why not cancel the agreement ? Seems they want others to fix their self-inflicted damage

schoolornot 6y ago

If GrubHub brings awareness to your restaurant that turns into an order why shouldn't they be compensated? You may not like the commission. Don't like it, leave. The only case I think is a step too far is if GrubHub uses their search rank to display results above a non-participating restaurant and attempts to extort commissions by displaying a proxy number anyway. Is there any evidence of this? If a customer decides to store the proxy number in their address book thinking that it's a direct line and GrubHub charges the restaurant for each call, then that's a bit scummy.

yeswecatan 6y ago
The redirect number can also appear higher in Google search results (including the Google panel for that business) than the restaurant’s own line. This leads some customers to call it even if they don’t intend to use Grubhub.
lakerz16 6y ago
If GH takes a 25% cut, then they need to be adding 25% more revenue to the takeout market. I would bet good money they are not. Instead, they are paying for ad space to siphon the traffic of already hungry customers looking to order from a restaurant. GH then shows the numbers to the restaurant and says "Look how much business GH brings you. You need to pay us for this" In many cases they are extorting restaurants over what would be organic web traffic. In these cases they are not adding new revenue to the industry, and are instead choking the restaurants that already operate on thin margins.
jschwartzi 6y ago
In all cases where GrubHub has the first result in my area, they didn't do anything to "make me aware" of the restaurant I'm trying to order from. All they're doing in many cases is making it a pain in the ass for me to order via the restaurant's own delivery page.
mdoms 6y ago
So the only case where you think it's a step too far is if the company is doing the thing that this article is about them doing?

obibring 6y ago

Its astonishing delivery services have the depravity to dupe customers trying to help a hurting industry. If you live in NYC or SF, I built a browser extension that will help you place delivery orders directly with local restaurants. It currently compares the price of your delivery across all delivery services, and within the next week, will link you to local restaurant websites if one is available. For those interested in checking, the link is https://platerapp.app.link/Gsxltl3d06 https://platerapp.app.link/Gsxltl3d06

ngoldberg 6y ago
i've been using this in nyc and saved 16 dollars across 3 orders which is a lot more than i have with honey. would really like to use the direct order feature so restaurants can benefit more.
cwhiz 6y ago
This is a great service also: https://www.eatnyc.org/ https://www.eatnyc.org/
myaccount54673 6y ago
Awesome idea - can I ask how broadly how it works? I would have thought pricing up a specific order on multiple apps programmatically would be difficult considering all the bot restrictions and coupons they have in place
zhoujianfu 6y ago
Awesome, I had exactly this idea.. you should consider expanding (if you don’t already) to direct from the restaurant services (e.g. Yoshinoya is available on doordash but also does their own delivery for way less). And then charge $1 per order and raise $1b!
TamirG 6y ago
This is great. Thanks for helping local restaurants!
cmbailey 6y ago
This is awesome. Please provide a box to signup for email updates - I'd like to find out if you ever release a Firefox version.

macintux 6y ago

Discussion from a couple of weeks ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23194727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23194727

mark-r 6y ago

So how do you avoid calling a 3rd party when Google won't show you the correct phone number?

yedava 6y ago
Most restaurants have a website. Their real phone number will be listed there.
- splonk 6y ago
  Just try to make sure you've found the real website and not one of Grubhub's autogenerated fake sites. They all look pretty similar so you'll be able to identify them after you've seen a few, but it's easy to mistakenly think you're at the real site the first time. https://www.eater.com/2019/6/28/19171476/grubhub-seamless-cybersquatting-restaurant-web-domains https://www.eater.com/2019/6/28/19171476/grubhub-seamless-cy...
  - mark-r 6y ago
    There's nothing to keep Grubhub from changing their site design. And someone else might get the same bright idea. So learning what a fake site looks like isn't going to be a long term solution.
- mark-r 6y ago
  I wouldn't say "most". The small local restaurants that you really want not to get taken by predatory schemes are the ones least likely to have a web presence.

suyash 6y ago

I use yelp to see reviews and menu but call directly to place a "togo" order.

sequoia 6y ago

Can Grubhub do this phone scamming thing if the restaurants don’t agree to work with Grubhub? If not, it’s on the restaurants to figure out they’re being scammed and cut off Grubhub. I agree it’s extremely sleazy but if restaurants opt into it what can you do? Regarding online ordering: restaurants need to decide if this is a space they want to be in (to grow business by allowing another channel for ordering) then research the field, pick a vendor with a fee model they like (or build their own!) and get actively into the game. For better or worse this is like having a phone number however-many years ago. You can choose not to but the technology is getting more and more popular so if you want to “keep up” you have to learn a new trick. There are some up-front flat-fee vendors out there that will allow you to set up your menu for online order at your domain. And if you don’t want to spend the time, Grubhub will do it for you for a fee, and if you don’t want to pay the fee or spend the time, then cross your fingers and hope your customers are ok ordering by phone. But online ordering is not going to come out of nothing at no cost.

CharlesW 6y ago
> Can Grubhub do this phone scamming thing if the restaurants don’t agree to work with Grubhub? I don't know whether they (legally) can, but they do. https://www.eater.com/2019/10/30/20940107/grubhub-to-add-restaurants-without-permission-like-postmates https://www.eater.com/2019/10/30/20940107/grubhub-to-add-res...
- sequoia 6y ago
  “ In July, New Food Economy reported that Grubhub was buying restaurant web domains without restaurants’ knowledge or consent, and though Grubhub argued it’s technically allowed to do that in the contract, it was still a bad look.” “In the contract” implies the restaurants are opting to work with Grubhub and pay them fees. As for “non-partner” listings, how can Grubhub charge a fee if the order is phoned in or payed over the counter like a normal order? So I don’t think that situation is one where restaurants are paying Grubhub any fees (though Grubhub is surely charging customers fees and possibly marking up menu items, the latter of which I agree is shady and should be stopped.) I am happy to be mad at Grubhub but I’m not condemning them for charging a restaurant a fee the restaurant agreed in writing to pay. Why did the coffee shop in TFA agree to pay $6.76 or whatever per call??

qwerty456127 6y ago

People should ask where who are they speaking to and if the operator lies they should take legal action.

bdowling 6y ago
There is no operator. The Grubhub-owned number will ring through to the restaurant, but will log the call so that Grubhub can get its commission.
- huhtenberg 6y ago
  The restaurant then should ask what number the customer was calling and offer a callback if it wasn't a direct call.
  - nmeofthestate 6y ago
    That's presumably against the terms of service they agreed when they decided to work with GrubHub. The real fix would be for the restaurant to stop using GrubHub. Unless I'm really misunderstanding what's going on here.

caymanjim 6y ago

It's possible to do this without resorting to the sleazy practices of Grubhub. I used to work for Slice, which provides order-taking (but notably not delivery) for mom-and-pop pizza shops. They don't add people to the platform without their permission. They only charge $1/order. They help restaurants digitize their menus, keep prices up to date, and they take orders digitally and over the phone. They have a large and responsive customer service department. It's all up front, honest, and affordable. It's not a direct comparison with Grubhub, since the restaurants still do the deliveries themselves, but it's a good business model and an honest company.

exogeny 6y ago
Ilir is a real one. I hope he keeps crushing it.
Nextgrid 6y ago
The "problem" is that it doesn't "scale" and there is not much opportunity for "growth" and "engagement", so VC scum will never do something legitimate like this and will instead attempt fraudulent practices like impersonating the restaurant's website and outranking them.
- hckr_news 6y ago
  Doesn’t Ycombinator constantly tell startups to “do things that don’t scale”
GhostVII 6y ago
People were previously claiming on Hacker News that Slice was registering websites on behalf of pizza shops, and then claiming the business as theirs on Google Maps [0]. Is this false? One user claimed that the businesses were not aware of this [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349819 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16824992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16824992
- caymanjim 6y ago

paul7986 6y ago

Why are so many popular startups run and funded by sleazebags... anything and everthing to win! Digusting!

dylz 6y ago
Grubhub is nearly two decades old.

HaloZero 6y ago

I'm wondering if they changed their policy in SF or if the restaurants I looked up just have opted out of this. I checked Phat Philly (all phone numbers on their website, grubhub, yelp, and google maps were the same). Same with Sultan Kebab & Gryo King (I couldn't find a number on their site but everyone else had the same number)

enumjorge 6y ago

> The redirect number can also appear higher in Google search results (including the Google panel for that business) than the restaurant’s own line. This seems like a pretty fundamental failure on Google's part. The whole value proposition of Google is that they'll find you the best answer for you search, not just 'an' answer that could be misinformation. This is the problem with the way their ranking algorithms tend to favor information aggregators. It's easy for second-hand sites to out-rank the source of truth. It reminds me of the way Pinterest has degraded the Google image search experience by polluting the results with their own low-quality entries. Now I get that automating the gathering of this information must not be easy. How do you verify the legitimacy of any one page claiming to be the site for a restaurant? What I don't understand is how Google can see that sites like Grubhub are exploiting the ranking algorithm to re-route users, but they don't do anything about it. Why don't they penalize those sites?

Wingman4l7 6y ago
IIRC, this was also an issue during the 2018 cryptocurrency rush -- fraudulent support phone #s for big exchanges / companies like Coinbase would show up higher in the rankings than the legitimate number. Frustratingly and amusingly, the fraudulent phone numbers were supposedly better-staffed and more responsive.
- VMisTheWay 6y ago
  Because fraudulent people don't actually provide value, where coinbase needs to confirm identity.

tehlike 6y ago

I'm surprised chownow is not mentioned. Decent product with Fixed upfront pricing

vxNsr 6y ago

Yeah for this reason I always try to just go the company's website and call them. some redirect me to chownow, which is ok, as long as I know that you'd rather let them handle the order instead of the phone.

sidhanthp 6y ago

I have instantly gained respect for Buzzfeed's reporting.

dejawu 6y ago

It's even more infuriating knowing that Grubhub is running these emotional "support local restaurant" ads that imply that using their service is somehow a form of activism while they steal from those very same businesses.

dkdk8283 6y ago

This is MITM and in many respects extremely unethical. I admit that the premise is clever but it’s little more than ripping people off. There’s no value add to the customer that I can see.

BelleOfTheBall 6y ago
It's supposed to help restaurants with admin and delivery stuff, which, in turn, would make it easier for customers to order and maybe even provide faster delivery but, in its current implementation, it's just a way to skim money off of the restaurants.

quickthrower2 6y ago

What if you call the Grubhub number from a prison phone!

ilaksh 6y ago

The solution is public peer to peer platforms and protocols.

LatteLazy 6y ago

So much signalling on here...

carbonatedmilk 6y ago

So confused. Do you not have tort law in the US? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off

monadic2 6y ago

All of these crowdsourcing apps (Uber, doordash, drizly, instacart) charge about 10-100x what you would think it would take to deliver the service.

a3n 6y ago

These restaurants signed up for a voluntary man in the middle attack. The reporter should have asked why these restaurants don't quit grub hub.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

joncrane 6y ago

Don't most people use Google Maps to find nearby restaurants? Does Google Maps ever give the wrong phone number to order from? I know using the phone is kinda 1900s but sometimes I like to ask about a certain dish I'm trying and stuff. Sometimes the person talking to me is a bit gruff but I tell myself it's OK because at least I'm not giving any money to the delivery companies. I hope it goes without saying that I always pick up. Any excuse to get out of the house, especially on a work day!

andrewla 6y ago

Why don't the restaurants just dramatically inflate their prices to accomodate the Grubhub fee? I don't understand why it would be better to contact the restaurant directly for the restaurant -- they benefit from Grubhub too, and if they don't want to pay the cost they should just pass it on to the customers. The restaurants have voluntarily entered into this arrangement. If they can't afford to operate with the fees on top of their regular prices, then they have to increase their prices.

izzydata 6y ago

If you accidentally called GrubHub and asked if you were speaking directly to the restaurant, would they lie to you?

eyeinthepyramid 6y ago
From what I can tell, they connect the caller directly to the restaurant, but charge the restaurant a fee for their connection "service".

greyhair 6y ago

I am only getting takeout from places I know. I have there menus in a drawer by the fridge. That way, I know I am calling directly. Much of the gig economy is just shyster business, wedging themselves between actual customers and actual providers, and taking far more than the actual value they provide.

jfrumar 6y ago

Even worse than just the misleading practices - we've been unable to connect through these proxied phone numbers at all. We just get an out of service tone. Both at&t and T-Mobile. I have been assuming it's because too many people are calling. Next time I pickup, I'll ask for a direct line.

JohnL4 6y ago

As soon as I hear "your call may be monitored to ensure AWESOMENESS!" I know money is changing hands.