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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 th

• acoard 6y ago
  Unless I'm missing something, the substantive difference hereis that GrubHub is still ordering from the restaurant that the customer is ordering from. Your comparison of pretending to offer GrubHubHelp but then going to competitors is like if I ordered McDonalds, and you brought me pasta. I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with what GrubHub is doing, but I could see them needing to clearly note the relationship. There are lots of personal shopping/delivery services which phone in orders and go pick something up without having a pre-existing relationship with the restaurant.
  • tartoran 6y ago
    > I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with what GrubHub is doing, but I could see them needing to clearly note the relationship. There are lots of personal shopping/delivery services which phone in orders and go pick something up without having a pre-existing relationship with the restaurant. The problem is that Grubhub is not asking permission to list the business on their site and it borders on abusive behavior. The said business may have an ordering system already or a phone number to order because they simply don't to share a hefty cut with Grubhub. Why they don't simply ask for permission? Because some restaurants wouldn't give it and Grubhub forces their hand. I think this is what this lawsuit is about.
    • chrisseaton 6y ago
      > The problem is that Grubhub is not asking permission But nothing says they have to as far as I know? Do you have to ask permission from an author before you resell a book you own? > because they simply don't to share a hefty cut with Grubhub They don't have to share a cut in this case. The restaurant still gets the full retail price that they set. Grubhub marks up on top of that or takes it as a loss as I understand. > Why they don't simply ask for permission? They don't want to. Do they need any more reason than that?
      • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        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'.
        • chrisseaton 6y ago
          Are they claiming to be the restaurant? Or just saying you can phone this number and get the advertised product, which is true?
          • nobody9999 6y ago
            >Are they claiming to be the restaurant? Or just saying you can phone this number and get the advertised product, which is true? Here's an example. The site linked (menupages.com) is owned by Grubhub/Seamless. The telephone number is not the actual phone number of the restaurant, and attempting to order through this site gives no hint that you're using Grubhub/Seamless. https://menupages.com/tropical-sensation/953-amsterdam-st-new-york https://menupages.com/tropical-sensation/953-amsterdam-st-ne... While search engines seem to have backed off putting GrubHub's fake websites near the top of searches, this has been a widespread practice by them for a long time[0]: "The company has registered a lot of fake websites. GrubHub has registered either a bit more than 23,000 websites, according to the New Food Economy, or 34,000 over the last nine years, per the New York Post’s report. The last domain GrubHub registered was in May, when the Post detailed the company’s practice of creating phone numbers for restaurants in order to drive up its own sales." [0] https://www.grubstreet.com/2019/07/everything-you-need-to-know-about-grubhubs-fake-websites.html https://www.grubstreet.com/2019/07/everything-you-need-to-kn...
    • shadowgovt 6y ago
      Why should they need to ask for permission? Businesses operate in the public sphere; they have physical addresses and show up in business listings, so their locations and info aren't private. The use of the logo for commercial purposes could be a concern; I could see an argument perhaps saying that the businesses should have more control over their trademarked property in the sense that there could be confusion of whether they're working with Grubhub (they're certainly not endorsing Grubhub). But apart from that, use of the business's information (including name) to describe what restaurants Grubhub will pick up from is nominative fair use. If I make a list of "businesses in my home town," McDonald's can't use trademark law to keep their name off my list. Same deal here.
      • acdha 6y ago
        Again, it’s misrepresentation: if they had a website and phone staff who made it very clear that they were unaffiliated with the listed business they would not be getting sued any more than a travel agent gets sued for buying airline tickets.
  • acdha 6y ago
    It’s still misrepresentation - would you really be okay with me putting up a bunch of pages pretending to be you with your name, photo, CV, etc. on the claim that’ll I’ll pass along any messages? Now remember that GrubHub is doing this to make money, so I’ll take 30% off of all receipts before I kick the actual work over to you. Oh, and GrubHub and UberEats like to do this to see which markets are the most profitable so I’ll be using your customer’s questions and orders as the basis for the ghost shop which will be undercutting you.
  • ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    The biggest issue, that we have around here, is that GH, and a few other outfits, SEO-spam their listings, sometimes, using branding elements taken directly from the restaurant's sites, and force themselves to the top of searches. If there are any issues with the order, I guarantee that GH does a quick dash for the door, leaving the restaurant holding the bag. The problem may have occurred anyway, but the customer was actually GH, not the person who called GH. GH made a sale, got a commission, then didn't have to stand behind their sale. It may not be illegal, but it is not-nice.
• heliodor 6y ago
  Grubhub is taking a deliberate action misrepresenting the restaurant and that action is harming the restaurant (in more ways than one). I imagine they can make a successful case but it's going to be a long expensive fight.
• chrisseaton 6y ago
  > That's clearly some kind of fraud or misrepresentation. I don't really understand this point of view. They're saying you'll get food from restaurant X. That's exactly what you do get, at the price you agreed. I can't conceive how that's fraud or misrepresentation?
  • sschueller 6y ago
    When you click on a number to call the restaurant and not the restaurant answers it is fraud if the restaurant did not agree on that. Doesn't matter if you end of providing the exact same service. What if I picked up calls going to Apple and all I did was transfer you to the correct person. You are still getting the same service if you called Apple directly but its not legal because Apple did not give me permission to impersonate them. Or what if a private entity picked up your call to 911?
    • happyrock 6y ago
      Correct. Also imagine if I, acting as this middleman, captured some data about you (say your phone number) before patching you through to Apple and used that to build a database. Are folks okay with that? I'm certainly not.
    • nobody9999 6y ago
      >What if I picked up calls going to Apple and all I did was transfer you to the correct person. You are still getting the same service if you called Apple directly but its not legal because Apple did not give me permission to impersonate them. You're missing the part about how GrubHub, et. al don't just pass you along, they charge 12-30% "commission" just for forwarding the call -- and they set up the fake number just so they could do so.
      • RandallBrown 6y ago
        Affiliate links work the same way. Are those also fraud?
        • 6y ago
• TuringNYC 6y ago
  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 wised up because I knew we had a corporate discount and asked who I was speaking to. They gave vague answers like "I'm the call center representative" or "I'm here to help you book with X hotel". The scam is they are trying to book you at a higher price w/o applying any corporate discounts, etc (and probably keeping a booking/affiliate fee). This should be illegal.
  • londons_explore 6y ago
    Just ask a random question only a real hotel employee would know - like "What time is breakfast served?"
    • TuringNYC 6y ago
      The problem is I dont have a "skeptical resting state" where i'm constantly trying to sniff out scams. I google "Fairmont Hotel Berkeley" because that is what my co-workers are staying at. I get an 800 number, which I call. The person is friendly and asks "Can I help you book a room at Fairmont Berkeley?" Business customers, especially, are somewhat price insensitive since they are not paying for trips. Sad world.
    • danuker 6y ago
      I suppose you should know this also, to detect a lie.
  • moksly 6y ago
    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 for private stays as well. Maybe it’ll cost me a few extra dollars, but I avoid the hassle of having to deal with hotels.com who among other things charge you up front and make it almost impossible to cancel.
• ghthrowaway99 6y ago
  [ 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 could collect comission on the orderflow that they're raking in for the restaurants. These were partnered restaurants, so they were signing up for this and could opt out of any of these services, in theory anyways I wasn't part of this so I have no idea if it's really that easy to opt out Separately, a practice pioneered by ubereats and doordash, "Place and Pay" is a new thing in the past 2-3 years where Grubhub will just list a bunch of restaurants without them asking for it ("non-partnered"), and when you place an order online the driver will go in and order takeout, then carry it to you. The restaurant can opt out of this, but they never asked for the service in the first place so it's kinda shitty. That's what this article is about. 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.
  • kop316 6y ago
    "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 pay the premium for delivery (to make sure the restaurant makes money and the driver makes money). Instead, I never use your service, and I never plan to. I go out of my way to call a restaurant (and because of shady behavior like that, I take the extra time to make sure it is that restaurant and not some call center) and I will physically go to a restaurant because to pick up my order, so I know they are not losing money on orders.
    • icebraining 6y ago
      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?
• nevi-me 6y ago
  Why play an ad when you can provide bad service, and so ruin their reputation; like they might be with restaurants? I stopped using Uber Eats and local alternatives here in South Africa, because I learnt on a day where they provided poor service; that they charge up to 50% more than the restaurant, all (3 services) have the exact pricing (collusion?), and still pay their drivers terribly. They kill restaurants' delivery businesses, which although fragmented, offer better service overall, and are much cheaper + accountable if an order goes wrong. GrubHub being opaque might be making people write off a lot of places. "I won't eat here, they got my takeout order wrong twice before".
• 8note 6y ago
  If you want fraud/misrepresentation, Postmates puts up incorrect menus and accept orders on things the restaurant doesn't even make
• pwinnski 6y ago
  This is a tough issue in the abstract, because information wants to be free, right? But there seems to clearly be something like fraud going on, and the involuntary nature of restaurants perceived to be participating is... weird.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• wushupork 6y ago
  This would be the most awesome troll of SV startups. Own the directory of help for all SV tech companies and create an AdSense for that.
• butterfi 6y ago
  I solve this issue by never using Grubhub and calling restaurants directly. I'm here to support restaurants, not Grubhub.
  • daveoc64 6y ago
    The complaint of many is that Grubhub gets its own number listed on many services such as Google Maps, so that you are tricked into thinking that their number is the restaurant.
• oftenwrong 6y ago
  >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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346971