Grubhub accused of creating fake websites for partner restaurants in order to drive more commission-based orders through their service

[Dan Druff]

As a victim of cybersquatting myself at one point, this story really struck a note with me.

Grubhub is a food delivery service which contracts with restaurants to pick up and deliver food to people. It solved the problem that small restaurants had, where they could not afford to hire staff to perform deliveries, if that wasn't the main part of their business. Uber Eats is a competitor to Grubhub.

Anyway, Grubhub only gets a commission if the order is placed through their site or one of their subsidiary company sites. If the customer goes directly to the website of the restaurant and orders from there -- or if the restaurant's site does not have an ordering system -- then Grubhub obviously gets nothing.

Since 2010, Grubhub "solved" this by buying up 34,000 domain names which are identical or similar to those of their partner restaurants. Grubhub then created their own misleading websites for these restaurants, making it seem as if it was the official restaurant for the business, and provided an "order online" mechanism which did it through Grubhub.

In many cases, the restaurant owners claim they were unaware this was done, nor was their permission sought.

Furthermore, often the Grubhub site would "compete" in search results with the actual restaurant website, confusing customers.

Grubhub claimed they had a policy to return these domains to any restaurant that complained, but some restaurant owners claim that Grubhub made it intentionally difficult to get the domains back when they requested it.

Shaaaaaaaaaaady.

https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/g...owners-consent

Even if Grubhub quickly returned the domains when requested, this would still be shitty, because it would essentially be a negative check-off scam. A negative check-off scam is where you rip off a large number of victims, but then quickly undo the scam for anyone who catches it and requests you to fix it. These scams are especially effective because only a small percentage of people catch it, and it also prevents these people from taking further action, once they're made whole.

However, that doesn't even appear to be what's happening here, as Grubhub is alleged to make it difficult to acquire the domains!

I never use Grubhub, I always like to check my food while at the restaurant, and also be able to request the right amount of side stuff (sauces, etc) and make sure I get it. Once a delivery person shows up with your order and something's incorrect, it's a huge pain in the ass. For that reason, I always do pickup and almost never do delivery of any kind.

[RS_]

So if the customer orders directly through the restaurant and Grubhub doesn't make money on that delivery, why are they doing that delivery?

[Dan Druff]

So if the customer orders directly through the restaurant and Grubhub doesn't make money on that delivery, why are they doing that delivery?

They're not.

Let's say that a restaurant has both its own delivery service and Grubhub.

So if someone uses the restaurant's own service, no commission goes to Grubhub, since Grubhub is cut out of the transaction.

Grubhub is trying to prevent this, as well as prevent people from going to a restaurant's website and not seeing anything about delivery on there (for those that don't do it themselves).

So they bought these domains and are hoping to trick people into thinking they've reached the actual restaurant website, when in reality it's a Grubhub-created site.

[gut]

These third party delivery services are about the worst thing to happen to a big part of the restaurant industry in awhile. If you want to order fast food, or fast-casual type stuff delivered, thats generally fine. Ordering from a sit-down dinner type place screws over the staff, which doesnt get any tip at all from it, while also slowing down the service for their actual tipping customers.

the shadiest of them (Postmates) will also add available restaurants to their site without even informing the place they are on there.

[OSA]

I dont see anything wrong with this. There are many restaurants that optin for Grubhub because of their user base and the additional eyes that will come across their restaurant providing increase in sales.

The same goes with Postmates and Uber Eats

[limitles]

this guy can't even keep the front wheel down anymore


I can't imagine the side show freaks that order McDonalds to be delivered. Probably the same people who took advantage of the in-store McDonalds at the local WalMart

The only thing left is to have a fleet of mobile ass wipers for the morbidly obese

[sah_24]

this guy can't even keep the front wheel down anymore


I can't imagine the side show freaks that order McDonalds to be delivered. Probably the same people who took advantage of the in-store McDonalds at the local WalMart

The only thing left is to have a fleet of mobile ass wipers for the morbidly obese

I guarantee you are fat like tine lol …

[OSA]

this guy can't even keep the front wheel down anymore


I can't imagine the side show freaks that order McDonalds to be delivered. Probably the same people who took advantage of the in-store McDonalds at the local WalMart

The only thing left is to have a fleet of mobile ass wipers for the morbidly obese

This is part of the reason I invested heavy in YUM brands. Delivery will significantly increase sales for these places(KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut included.

And no, you dont have to be a fatass to like those places. Plenty of skinny white boys like them too. I know, because I order it for them 1 am in the morning as they are huffing on their juul pods while I am jerking their cock.

[Bootsy Collins]

Real Talk. DoorDash is where it’s at.

[MumblesBadly]

As a victim of cybersquatting myself at one point, this story really struck a note with me.

Grubhub is a food delivery service which contracts with restaurants to pick up and deliver food to people. It solved the problem that small restaurants had, where they could not afford to hire staff to perform deliveries, if that wasn't the main part of their business. Uber Eats is a competitor to Grubhub.

Anyway, Grubhub only gets a commission if the order is placed through their site or one of their subsidiary company sites. If the customer goes directly to the website of the restaurant and orders from there -- or if the restaurant's site does not have an ordering system -- then Grubhub obviously gets nothing.

Since 2010, Grubhub "solved" this by buying up 34,000 domain names which are identical or similar to those of their partner restaurants. Grubhub then created their own misleading websites for these restaurants, making it seem as if it was the official restaurant for the business, and provided an "order online" mechanism which did it through Grubhub.

In many cases, the restaurant owners claim they were unaware this was done, nor was their permission sought.

Furthermore, often the Grubhub site would "compete" in search results with the actual restaurant website, confusing customers.

Grubhub claimed they had a policy to return these domains to any restaurant that complained, but some restaurant owners claim that Grubhub made it intentionally difficult to get the domains back when they requested it.

Shaaaaaaaaaaady.

https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/g...owners-consent

Even if Grubhub quickly returned the domains when requested, this would still be shitty, because it would essentially be a negative check-off scam. A negative check-off scam is where you rip off a large number of victims, but then quickly undo the scam for anyone who catches it and requests you to fix it. These scams are especially effective because only a small percentage of people catch it, and it also prevents these people from taking further action, once they're made whole.

However, that doesn't even appear to be what's happening here, as Grubhub is alleged to make it difficult to acquire the domains!

I never use Grubhub, I always like to check my food while at the restaurant, and also be able to request the right amount of side stuff (sauces, etc) and make sure I get it. Once a delivery person shows up with your order and something's incorrect, it's a huge pain in the ass. For that reason, I always do pickup and almost never do delivery of any kind.

This explains why when I tried to order delivery directly off the website menu of a small Atlanta area restaurant the other day, it sent me to what looked like a GrubHub order screen. I declined to order through it thinking it was a fake site.

[BCR]

I’m kind of shocked what I assume was a well-funded startup would do something so visibly shady.

I actually fell for something similar with an airline ticket for about 5 minutes. I jumped online and booked a flight through what appeared to be the airline, but when I was done, the price felt a bit high, and something just felt off to me. I checked my bank immediately and saw some phony travels and destination company billing address. I called the airline and immediately canceled. I legit had a ticket, but it was some third party site owned by some Arab that up charged like $150 and simply made the reservation for you. I can’t imagine how many people fall for a site that looks identical to the actual site considering it’s not a straight scam and you’ll actually have a ticket waiting. Felt like it should be illegal but the company was US based.

[Hockey Guy]

I’m kind of shocked what I assume was a well-funded startup would do something so visibly shady.

I actually fell for something similar with an airline ticket for about 5 minutes. I jumped online and booked a flight through what appeared to be the airline, but when I was done, the price felt a bit high, and something just felt off to me. I checked my bank immediately and saw some phony travels and destination company billing address. I called the airline and immediately canceled. I legit had a ticket, but it was some third party site owned by some Arab that up charged like $150 and simply made the reservation for you. I can’t imagine how many people fall for a site that looks identical to the actual site considering it’s not a straight scam and you’ll actually have a ticket waiting. Felt like it should be illegal but the company was US based.

Ticketmaster did something even shadier. You'd pick a seats for a popular concert & you'd be well within their little countdown clock & then be re-directed at payment to another site also owned by ticketmaster & looked almost identical where they were scalping their own tickets. The price would suddenly be higher, for no apparent reason, & the same clock would be counting down until you lost your tickets.

Like your example, you had a real ticket but they were not only doing this themselves by scalping the ticket but also charging all those lol "convenience" fees & such.

[theSMARTESTLIBERALalive]

This is called capitalism and there is nothing wrong with it. In capitalism, the customer gets screwed. Greedy business owners are raping hard working people. And it is all OK and very legal. Isn't capitalism special. The next time you capitalists spend some money be assured you are grabbing your ankles for someone.

[David USF]

This is called capitalism and there is nothing wrong with it. In capitalism, the customer gets screwed. Greedy business owners are raping hard working people. And it is all OK and very legal. Isn't capitalism special. The next time you capitalists spend some money be assured you are grabbing your ankles for someone.

Like most things in life, capitalism has its faults. Socialism has more faults. I'd much rather live in a capitalistic society than a socialist/communist society any damn day of the week.

[hutmaster]

the shadiest of them (Postmates) will also add available restaurants to their site without even informing the place they are on there.

Door Dash does this too. I believe In n out sued them
For using their logo on their site without permission.

I had to call Door Dash and tell them to also remove my logo from their site. For restaurants that don’t sign contracts with them they will post their menu often with
Price increases and accept orders. They will call the order in to the restaurant as if they are a customer coming in for pick up. The restaurant never knows it was
A door dash order.

[Jayjami]

I’m kind of shocked what I assume was a well-funded startup would do something so visibly shady.

They are in the fight of their lives to gain initial market share, with millions at stake. If I was a shareholder, unless what they were doing was illegal, I would expect nothing less.

My cousin has run a local restaurant delivery service for 20 years. He is eventually getting out. He knows he can’t complete with these guys in the long run.

[Crowe Diddly]

I dont see anything wrong with this. There are many restaurants that optin for Grubhub because of their user base and the additional eyes that will come across their restaurant providing increase in sales.

The same goes with Postmates and Uber Eats

If you order from the restaurant's website, grubhub et al get a small commission. If you merely think you are ordering from the restaurant's website, but are actually using the grubhub pseudo-site, the restaurant gets porked for 20%+ in commission fees. That's shitty as hell from a "partner."

[tony bagadonuts]

This is called capitalism and there is nothing wrong with it. In capitalism, the customer gets screwed. Greedy business owners are raping hard working people. And it is all OK and very legal. Isn't capitalism special. The next time you capitalists spend some money be assured you are grabbing your ankles for someone.

Like most things in life, capitalism has its faults. Socialism has more faults. I'd much rather live in a capitalistic society than a socialist/communist society any damn day of the week.

Hey Dave....um......just an FYI.

Your giving a serious response to a dupe/joke/satire account. Just sayin.

[OSA]

I dont see anything wrong with this. There are many restaurants that optin for Grubhub because of their user base and the additional eyes that will come across their restaurant providing increase in sales.

The same goes with Postmates and Uber Eats

If you order from the restaurant's website, grubhub et al get a small commission. If you merely think you are ordering from the restaurant's website, but are actually using the grubhub pseudo-site, the restaurant gets porked for 20%+ in commission fees. That's shitty as hell from a "partner."

Alot of restaurants would rather not pay for a website though. Especially smaller ones. Im sure many on here can attest of the cost associated with a website and with every change or hours, menu items, specials, comes with an additional cost because the designer wont be doing these changes for free and if they do its because they charge a monthly fee. I know this cause owners have told me this and they would rather keep an outdated site than deal with these charges.

In addition, having a landing page by grubhub means that it ranks higher on google searches because of their presence and there no associated costs with updating and changing things. This allows the biz owner to focus on other things.

Proper restaurants already have these margins built in. The volume associated being apart of these companies far outweigh the negatives and its proven with all these competitors popping up.

Also, I havent looked this up, but I would love to see what a regular check average when ordered online is compared to dine in and the frequency of these orders compared to dine in restaurant goers. I bet the numbers would shock most.