Chicago Sues DoorDash, Grubhub For Allegedly Deceiving Customers (cnbc.com) 47
The City of Chicago filed two sweeping lawsuits against DoorDash and Grubhub for allegedly deceiving customers and using unfair business practices. From a report: The suits echo long-standing claims from restaurant owners that the platforms advertise delivery services for their businesses without their consent and conceal lower prices that restaurants offer directly to customers, outside of the platforms. The city also claims both platforms use a "bait-and-switch" method to attract customers with low delivery fees, only to charge additional ones when they are about to place their order. In separate statements, both DoorDash and Grubhub called the lawsuits "baseless." [...] In November, DoorDash stopped adding new restaurants that it doesn't have agreements with to its app. It also said it will remove restaurants that don't want to be listed within 48 hours of being notified.
are they adding auto tips that don't go to driver? (Score:3)
are they adding auto tips that don't go to driver?
Re: are they adding auto tips that don't go to dri (Score:2)
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Why should they need permission?
They are buying the meals from the restaurant and reselling them to the customer at a markup.
If I want to sell my used Chevrolet, I don't need permission from GM.
Once you sell something, you no longer get to control what happens to it.
Re: are they adding auto tips that don't go to dri (Score:5, Informative)
If I want to sell my used Chevrolet, I don't need permission from GM.
If you look up the names of every GM dealer in an area, create fake webpages and phone numbers with those dealer names on them, and masquerade as "GM agreeing to sell their merchandise in this manner", thereby making consumer believe that your little operation is in fact endorsed by GM, you better believe GM will have troops of nicely-manicured lawyers in expensive suits politely knocking on your door to deliver many interesting papers to read.
So they admit it (Score:5, Insightful)
Doordash will remove non-consenting restaurants within 24 hours of being notified? In other words, they'll rip off your restaurant until you complain, and even then they'll wait a day.
This is a business model based on deceit. I hope the lawsuit puts them out of business.
Re: So they admit it (Score:1)
How are they ripping off restaurants? They are a middleman. They take your order, add a small fee for their overhead, and place the order at the restaurant for you. The restaurant gets the exact same amount of money as if you ordered it yourself directly. You are paying a bit more to cover the overhead, but that overhead is for the convenience of having someone else pick up your order and deliver it to you. I don't see how this is ripping off restaurants. If anything, this is driving more business to
Re: So they admit it (Score:4, Informative)
Re: So they admit it (Score:2)
How are they getting a commission from restaurants that never signed a contract?
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Even if they did earn a commission, they deserve it because takeouts mean higher profits for restaurants. There are no tables to set and bus, no dishes and flatware to wash, and no waitress wages to be paid.
Takeout cuts into profits (Score:3)
- Disposable packaging is expensive. Sure the cost of running a dishwasher is non-zero, but in one cycle you can wash several tables' worth of plates and silverware for less than the cost of one to-go box.
- Servers are paid almost nothing in wages, their money comes from tips, yet servers do most of the work for dine-in customers. When the food is to-go, usually a higher paid person such as a host
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I don't have a problem with them taking a commission as long as they're honest about it to the customer while they're busy charging delivery fees too.
It's the deceptive double dipping I take issue with.
As a customer I think I'm justified in knowing how much they're bilking out of my favorite restaurant while they're charging me delivery fees
Re: So they admit it (Score:5, Insightful)
They insert themselves as a middleman without bothering to ask the restaurant's permission, their advertising implies they are actually the restaurant itself offering a service, they mess up the restaurant's scheduling and service by generating orders the restaurant doesn't know about and may not be able to handle, and when things go wrong as they inevitably do, the customer blames the restaurant and not Doordash. Restaurants end up losing their reputations and their loyal customers, and sometimes are even driven out of business. All for a devil's bargain they didn't even consent to.
Doordash is trying to make a quick buck by milking the reputations of established restaurants, and ruining the restaurants in the process. To say nothing of how they rip off the gig workers who deliver for them.
Re: So they admit it (Score:5, Informative)
How is that DoorDash's fault? Did they use the restaurant's logo?
Have you ever looked at grubhub or door dashes sites? Yes they use the fucking restaurants logos on the restaurant page you cretin.
Loyal customers can recognize that the web site is not the restaurant's web site.
And I'm sure said loyal customers will never hear about how "I didn't get my single sauce packet ( that fell out of the bag in the drivers car ) from that place, it's horrible" or "My food was 1/2 a degree too cold and it took them too long to deliver" and other bullshit that has nothing to do with the restaurant itself. Especially as most people have about as much logical comprehension as a gnat, as you are such a shining example of.
If their gig workers were so unhappy, they'd quit. Stop trying to defend people who can defend themselves. It's not your job. It's not your call. It's not your prerogative. Stop trying to be a SJW.
What a bunch of drivel. If you don't even know what you are calling someone means, maybe, just maybe you should disengage fingers from keyboard and engage brain before you post.
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So, if they're going to
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Are you delusional? .... Stop trying to be a SJW.
You sound stupid. Perhaps reading is a better place to start than attempting to respond with ignorance.
Re: So they admit it (Score:4, Insightful)
The restaurant has to deal with complaints about cold, damaged food because of a delivery process they never signed up for.
And the restaurant also has to deal with complaints when the delivery service doesnt keep its menu up to date and a customer orders something the venue doesnt offer any more.
And the restaurant has no control over delivery times or prices, so when the restaurant is busy they cant turn away orders at the door. So the customer complains about the restaurant.
And the restaurant doesnt get to set delivery fees or service areas, but has to handle complaints about both.
Lots of ways in which the restaurant gets screwed over because someone else is reselling their service.
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That's the restaurant's problem though for letting it happen on their watch.
Restaurants should be loyal to their customers first and foremost because they're the ones ultimately picking up the tab for the service they're requesting.
And if that means breaking ties with delivery companies that drop the ball by letting the food get cold, so be it.
A restaurant very MUCH has the duty to tell the delivery co "if you let our food get cold and let your drivers we're going to fire your ass and do it ourselves"
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“That's the restaurant's problem though for letting it happen on their watch.”
If thats your response then you have no fucking idea of what is actually happening here. None at all. And its pointless explaining it to you.
There are no ties to drop - the vast majority of the time, these delivery companies are placing orders as customers, not as contracted delivery companies. And that is the problem everyone is talking about here. There is no delivery company to drop, until the restaurant gets to
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...Allegedly... (Score:3)
I used these services a time or 2 (Score:5, Informative)
We get a smaller cut if you use them, just call us direct like you always have.
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some restaurants (like chick fil a) raise the prices of the food if you order through doordash
Re:Why are the owners crying? (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you have against restaurants that want to simply control the use of their own name, service, and product?
Apparently Agent Fletcher supports fraud against locally owned business.
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Clearly the city of Chicago should be listening to you. -1 seems about right
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It's about time (Score:5, Informative)
They also calculate the percentage tip based on the total prices, including tax and fees. So, instead of giving, say, a 20% tip for the $35 worth of food, they make it 20% of the $50 or so total which includes the taxes and fees. They probably do that to help keep drivers, but it's still slimy.
I've also noticed many times that the prices for the food on a restaurant's own website will be $1-$3 (or more) cheaper per item than the price on GrubHub... and many of these restaurants offer free delivery, or cheap delivery, when you order directly from them.
They're vultures. I hope they lose the lawsuits.
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That's called fraud.
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It's fraud because they're masquerading as the restaurants, using their trademarks without their consent in a deliberate attempt to deceive customers into using their service instead of contacting the restaurant directly. This winds up harming both the restaurant (whose brand is diluted) and the customer (who gets inferior service at inferior (higher) prices).
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Why? How is that different than me picking up a light bulb from Home Depot, driving it down the street, and selling it for 1.5 x the price I bought it for? You says "Home Depot didn't make the product you bought and resold." Okay. Let's take it a step further and say I buy a McDonald burger, drive it over to the next town, and sell it with the McDonald wrapper still on to someone who's willing to pay 1.5 x the price. Who is going to stop me?
The health department
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You have no idea how many times I've put things in the shopping cart, only to get to the final screen and see all the added fees and close the browser window. This may seem insinuatory, but are you that fickle that your impulsive finger takes over and you have to click "Submit"?
This is a well known, pervasive psychological trick that is rampant in many industries, from hotels, to rental cars, to restaurants. The actual cost is hidden up front, so the user has to invest significant time to do cost comparison. They are manipulating you into clicking the submit button because if you back out, you'll have wasted the time you've already invested. Plus, if everybody in the industry does it, you'll be taking a risk of wasting time on a competitor's website only to get the same result.
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some (like chick fil a) raise the price so that the customer is persuaded to not use third party companies
i have stopped ordering online and just do takeout instead. much cheaper if you live close by.
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greed (Score:3)
I found out about this because a local service that cost less money wound up cheaper for everyone in total.
I'd rather pay a little extra if it saves the restaurant money.
I was all for them until I found out they were double dipping by taking commissions out of the sales they brought the restaurant.
Now they just look like greedy bastards to me and I'm boycotting them as a group.
I won't do business with them again until they fess up to the customers how much of a cut their taking out of the restuarant's revenue.
A local restaurant actually dropped one of the Big Name delivery monkeys in favor of the local option because of costs from coughing up the commission.
I sense a dissonance in the farce. (Score:2)
coworker just got this with aztec grill (Score:3)
Called a number that looked like it was to aztec grill, on a page that looked like aztec grill, turned out to be grubhub and they had apparently routed the call to a center in a foreign land because the person he got on the phone didn't speak English for shit. So not only are they deliberately deceiving customers in order to insert themselves into transactions, they're destroying local jobs in the process. Fuck grubhub sideways, I wouldn't give them a dime for a dollar.