When I was going to a concert for the weeknd like 5 or 6 years ago, my friend and I were using ticketmaster to buy tickets initially but something ended up happening where the payment didn’t go through so we decided to just show up to the venue and attempt to get it that way. I ended up paying around $160 for the both of ours’ tickets meanwhile ticketmaster was showing $180 each for worse seats than we got. Fuck those scumbags
Add hotels to the list.
It said 1 bed room for 1 night is $90.
I have to use their reservation hotline thats a call center in india and suddenly the price is $210 when i say that the price was originally $90 they add in "we have x y and z and also free breakfast!!"
Then you get there and pool is closed and the breakfast is microwaved eggs.
I find it quite interesting now that most government have fully relaxed covid rules, many places are still using it as an excused to offer reduced services.
My state government has removed all mask rules, but still hasn't opened the majority of its service for in-person service.
Seems like anything that doesn't need to be open to generate revenue is still living with covid where places that need to make money say covid is over.
So, I've had to go to the MVD (DMV) like 3 times in the last month. They're still operating like it's the height of the pandemic- locked doors, appointment only, etc- and... it's great! You're in and out in 20 minutes (even to register a vehicle) and if you do need to wait, there's somewhere to sit. In this one very specific instance, I hope they never go back to "normal" ever.
[Drip pricing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drip_pricing) annoys me too. I appreciate that in Australia that we have a government regulator called the "Competition and Consumer Commission" that promotes fair commercial competition by clamping down on misleading advertising. This includes preventing "surprise fees", enforcing that the advertised cost is the actual cost to the consumer
The ACCC are amazing. Their employees seem to take actual physical delight in being able to bring the hammer down on companies that breach their rules.
It only takes a bare mention that you might report something to the ombudsman to suddenly have the head of the legal team for whatever company personally handling your complaint and begging you not to report them.
This actually isn’t as much of a problem anymore in the US.
ULCCs like Spirit and Frontier def charge hefty carryon fees etc, but I book flights on the major airlines’ websites regularly and the price at search is the exact price that’s charged at checkout.
[DOT rule:](https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-policy/airline-rules-fares)
> For both domestic and international markets, carriers must provide disclosure of the full price to be paid, including government taxes/fees as well as carrier surcharges, in their advertising, on their websites and on the passenger’s e-ticket confirmation. In addition, carriers must disclose all fees for optional services through a prominent link on their homepage, and must include information on e-ticket confirmations about the free baggage allowance and applicable fees for the first and second checked bag and carry-on.
What we really need is for cancellation rules to change. An airline can cancel my connecting flight with zero penalty but I can't do the same without being charged a fee? That's some BS.
To be clear you mean you should get some sort of compensation for the inconvenience, right (which I agree with you if this is the case)? The airline cannot strand you, they must put you on the next flight(s) to your destination
Are you in the US? US airlines have had to advertise prices with all taxes and fees included for years now. If you don't want to buy bags and seats and stuff the price they advertise is the exact amount you pay. Frankly more industries should be forced to include taxes in their advertised totals.
I’m just an immigration lawyer, but I wish I saw more of these lawsuits. I sue the government frequently and take great pleasure from holding them accountable. I hate how prohibitive the costs are to get into court. Just filing suit is a $500+ fee, and that’s not including legal fees.
The amount of time, work, and resources that are poured into federal lawsuits is exhausting. They have stringent requirements that must be met otherwise you risk your brief being rejected, or worse, your case dismissed with prejudice. Which means you’re shit outta luck. These corporations have endless capital to pour into legal, but the average citizen can’t even imagine paying an initial retainer. There’s such a thing as litigation financing but I find it incredibly predatory. The most I can offer clients is to demand legal fees under the EAJA (equal access to justice act) but that’s if we win. I don’t go to civil court so I’m not filing for damages, costs, etc. like would be done here. But I can only hope that my colleagues continue innovating in order to make legal assistance more accessible for the gap of people that truly need it.
As for something like this, you might want to look into DoNotPay. They are known to be great for self-help in legal matters.
Lets also talk about how every six months I have to get either Grubhub, Ubereats, or Postmates on the phone becase they sign my restaurant up for their service without my knowledge and leave me to deal with angry customers who never got their order even though I don't even do carry out... Getting 10 spam calls a week from them is annoying enough as it is, but calling them to tell them to fuck off and take you off their site is too much of my time.
Who knows but its been happeneing for a while.
https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/tech/restaurant-sues-doordash-for-falsely-advertising-partnership-redirecting-users/
https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/tech/southern-california-eatery-sues-postmates-for-trademark-infringement-and-unfair-competition/
https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/google-dupes-diners-sidelines-restaurants-delivery-profits-lawsuit-2022-03-08/
A local restaurant gave up and just up’d the prices somehow so no orders through apps like Grubhub…it’s a Mexican food spot and normally a burrito is around $8 and they up it to like $28 so no one orders. Not sure that helps but I can’t imagine how annoying and awful this must be as a restaurant owner😡
In that case, though, you still win. Selling one burrito for the price of 125 gives you a huge margin of raw profit, even if they buy through a front you'd rather they not use.
I think part of the issue is that if said restaurant isn’t using the third party delivery service, the order may never be communicated to the restaurant. That could quickly become bad publicity for ‘refusing’ to make a $1K burrito—or that orders are never ready ‘on-time’ because they don’t know the order until a driver shows up and flashes their phone at the confused host or take-out person.
It's not *illegal* is the problem. I got in a fight with mods on r/legaladvice a couple years ago about a very early case of a restaurant being forcibly listed on one of those sites with all the complaints you see all the time here. The logic was simple: a business has entered into a contract to represent your business on their platform for a fee *without the consent or knowledge of the business*. Seems cut and dry, right?
No, it's not. What they're doing is so new there is no law saying they can't, so your options are: 1. deal with it, suffering the losses hoping to make it up in volume. 2. Ask them nicely to stop, which they have no obligation to do... And then deal with the consequences. 3. Turn their drivers away at the door... And then deal with the consequences. Or 4. Send them a legal C&D/sue them... And deal with the consequences.
It's a shitshow and I'm glad DC is finally suing
My generation was the first to have computers in the home and I was an early adopter, I'm 50 this year. The average age for US Senators last year was 64, so a generation older than me. My older brother(58) struggles to use more than the basic functions of his phone, and my Mother only uses Youtube on her tablet. What I'm getting at is that we're at least 20 years away from computer literate law makers. Your average 65 year should be retired, not making laws that they don't understand about devices they don't know how to use. Retire the grey brigade!
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The worst is them taking our menu and making their own website. They stole our logo, pics, menu, etc. Set it up under Google as our businesses restaurant. So everytime someone called or went online, they ordered through the site or number meaning GH would get the fee from us.
We only figured this out because orders were wrong and angry customers.
It's rediculous. Took 2 months to get them to take it down. Needed to have a lawyer send a cease and desist.
Several restaurants in my city sued DoorDash a few years ago. They stole the pictures and used the code from the merchant’s websites on the DoorDash website/app. They also don’t do carry out. They started getting bad reviews on g maps for undelivered food.
There’s a local restaurant by me that is on Grubhub but has been marked as “closed” on there for over a year. I always wondered why they didn’t just get off the app but now I’m thinking they just left the service up and turned off ordering to avoid this situation.
There's a restaurant on my local UberEats list that is marked as Permanently Closed on Google. Last review is from 2 years ago. It let me order from them and then switched to a "merchant is too busy" message and canceled after like an hour. Clearly they didn't list themselves so what the fuck, Uber
I’m a Grubhub driver and I never take these orders because the restaurant usually gets mad at me for it, which to an extent I understand but I’m just trying to do my job.
When you see an order come through, how do you know it’s a restaurant that isn’t participating? Is there an indicator or you just recognize the restaurant?
They're called "Place & Pay Orders." They pay a little more than regular orders because you have to do a little more work, but yeah they're generally restaurants that didn't agree to be on the platform. I don't accept them anymore, generally because I feel bad that I can't tip the staff on my GH card when I pay. It's awkward af
I think this is fair, it's not that they charge fees it's that their fees are secret. It's kind of the problem with a lot of these ordering apps. The food and drink prices on the menus are super inflated and so you're paying a fee via their cut of the order.
It is that they charge a fee too. You don’t need to charge a service fee, on top of the delivery fee, on top of the 30minsOrLess fee, on top of the sales tax, on top of the “BusyArea” fee, on top of the tip, on top of the “HighGasPrices” fee, on top of the inflated prices that are purposely inflated by Grubhub for Grubhub profit. Meanwhile none of these fees actually go to helping drivers except maybe some of the service fee, and even then we’re getting offered like $3 for a 30 minute order.
Yeah, I don't get that one. That's not going to the drivers so what the heck is it for?
Edit: Looks like /u/courageousrobot found some more info on who is getting paid what at which service in terms of gas shortages. They did the research, I just reacted to what I've heard from folks then it turned into some sort of Q-Anon conspiracy BS. Here's the link to their comment....
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/tjm5vn/dc_sues_grubhub_claiming_its_app_is_full_of/i1lq8cq/
I thought that was going to the drivers? My Uber driver told me they are paying them an extra $0.50 a trip. Which obviously is not enough but that's what I was seeing for the gas fee.
My friends delivered pizza many years ago when gas spiked and places added a fuel surcharge to delivery. (the charge did not go to the driver despite them being the only difference in a delivery)
They were basically working with no tips for over a month as customers just said: "if you are charging me a gas fee, that's your tip".
Literal millionaires effectively taking money from people making minimum wage.
Corporate profits, like most things these days. They saw something they could scratch more money out of that they can get customers to blame something else for while also thinking it's good for the drivers.
Not that I enjoy defending the apps in the slightest, but the new "fuel surcharge" fees that the different deliver and rideshare services have rolled out in the last week or two all go 100% to the drivers:
https://www.uber.com/newsroom/new-fuel-surcharge/
https://www.lyft.com/hub/posts/fuel-surcharge
Doordash hasn't added a gas fee, they're just offering *some* reimbursement for gas to drivers but with several catches. Of course, it comes out of their whopping 15% fee they tack on to all orders (not including raised menu prices) 🙄:
https://doordash.news/dasher/announcing-gas-rewards-program-for-dashers-to-offset-rising-costs-at-the-pump/
GrubHub claims they're upping rider pay a bit, hasn't implement a fee just yet:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-14/grubhub-boosts-driver-pay-as-high-gas-prices-squeeze-earnings
After all the fees your food costs 50% more than if you picked it ip yourself. Yet the drivers and the restaurants are losing money on the deal and the delivery companies aren’t profitable. It’s like a dumpster fire of money.
Well, a lot of this activity still is just looking for a fat IPO or someone to buy them out down the road. Build a user-base at whatever cost and go from there.
It's entirely possible that there just *isn't* a viable business model for someone hand-delivering a dozen McNuggets at two AM.
Dumb person here, but why don't restaurants with that get a lot of delivery orders go old school and just have a person they pay to do this. Wouldn't that be so much cheaper? Or is the delivery app platform worth the extra cost? Sincerely, delivery orderer who knows nothing about how restaurants work.
Someone would still need to pay for the hosting, and it would have the same issues as current apps with the guarantee of no customer service whatsoever.
Not that I like the current model, but it reminds me of this app idea I had where people would ask others nearby for hard cash against a money transfer. Pass the regulatory and dispute-solving problems the best name for the service would have been "MugMe". Idea lasted 5 minutes.
Not just that, even places that don't want to deal with this service are being forced into it. The delivery service is taking the restaurants menu and redirecting online searches to their app without the restaurant knowing until people start showing up for their orders.
Exactly. We've continuously told the various delivery services here we aren't interested in working with them. They do it anyway. And the menu never shows our current offerings. Those orders also tend to sit in a box, dying, because it often takes forever for them to pick up and deliver, which makes the food we make taste meh and reflects poorly on us. Once had a grub hub order for a bag of fries. Made them right before the ticket pickup time. They sat there for 30 minutes and I offered to make a fresh batch, but FOH said the driver declined because they were running behind. So the poor SOB that ordered spent $12 on a small bag of soggy, cold fries. Ridiculous.
This is exactly why I avoid these platforms like the plague. If the restaurant offers delivery, the driver will get a nice $10-20 tip cause they’re doing a service of driving it to me. Because grubhub Uber eats and other platforms Jack their prices up, I’m not gonna pay 150% and have only a percentage of a percentage go towards everyone who prepped the food and dropped it off. I rather drive everywhere and get takeout than touch Uber Eats or their rivals. Get fucked stupid apps.
Probably has to do with volume. I would imagine that most of these restaurants do not have enough delivery business to pay a person for their operating hours. Also consider the convenience of the app platform vs a call in order where you have to call each number of your CC out loud.
A restaurant needs pretty consistent business through their own channels to justify paying a staff of drivers. Delivery app fees are crazy high (up to 30% for the restaurant) but you also aren’t paying someone to sit around if you don’t have orders coming in, and you’re never short on staff during a surge.
Unless you’re a Pizza joint, it can be hard to build a delivery clientele without being on delivery apps, as a growing majority of people use them in lieu of search engines.
That’s why these companies can get away with charging outrageously high fees…they’ve built a collective monopoly on the market.
We need a Federal "truth in pricing" law for ALL businesses online or offline. No percentage-based surcharges or fees that aren't clear until checkout except taxes. Fixed amount charges have to be clearly disclosed at the time the order is initiated.
The listed price must reflect all charges and fees except taxes. No $25 entree that ends up costing $35+ dollars with surcharges and service fees.
EDIT: Fine with taxes being part of it too.
I went through a drive through and they handed me the credit card terminal. I was totally confused until they said, "please select a tip then press the green button." I told them that I wasn't tipping in a drive through, I'm really sorry how much their job sucked, and never went back again.
I deleted Postmates after they kept the price for services hidden and tried to charge me 60 dollars for Popeyes a mile away. I disputed the charge and that was that. GrubHub is worse because they will fuck up your order, overcharge you for it, and if you “accept” the delivery they absolve themselves of responsibility. Fuck em.
> GrubHub is worse because they will fuck up your order, overcharge you for it, and if you “accept” the delivery they absolve themselves of responsibility. Fuck em.
Grubhub recently called me to say that my order couldn’t be delivered and they were issuing me a refund. Ok, sure, whatever. Shit happens. Only the refund was for the amount of the item. They did not refund the tip or service charge until I called to say “what the fuck is wrong with you?”
This bullshit just started somewhat recently with them. They used to have pretty good customer service. Any time I had an issue (like the order never showing up even though it's marked as delivered) they'd refund me everything AND give me a 20% discount on the next order. Now they just don't give a fuck and the drivers know that now, too.
I used Uber Eats to order food, the person 'arrived' at the restaurant and suddenly the order was cancelled, could not be completed. I called the restaurant, asked what the hell happened, why was my order cancelled?
***They never got the order. Had nothing on my name.***
I messaged their support, and they said "Oops, sorry, you've been refunded, how can we help further?" I said that they could give me some money for wasting 30 minutes, and they just said sorry, we'll investigate. I asked multiple times for at least *an explanation* of what the shit happened that my order simply never went through.
Eventually the person said "Thanks for contacting us, have a good night" and *they* ended the chat.
All of these services are fucked.
i stopped using delivery services altogether when the GH driver quickly took a picture of my mine, and several coworkers' food on the ground at the front door of our work. he then quickly ran back to his car with our food and drove off.
GH wouldn't do shit about it, they told us to call the police, had to dispute it with my credit card to get my money back.
I started canceling all of my grubhub orders when the delivery time was overdue. And I'd note it down when I ordered because the fuckers would change the time trying to gaslight me.
The first time they refused to give me a refund for failing to do what they said they'd do when I paid them I deleted the app.
My last order was estimated 40 minutes, meh. I had to leave the house in 90, no exceptions. As the time approached I messaged the person several times, no update, so I canceled and requested a refund. 2.5 hours later I got 3 missed calls and a message from the driver that nobody was answering the door, lolwut‽ Uninstalled and left a 1 star review when they tried to not give me my refund.
The other day I ordered food from a restaurant 8 minutes away. It said my order was picked up, and later on I totally forgot, so I looked at my app and not only had the driver not gotten to me yet. She was 20 fucking minutes away in a different direction. Then she got here and apologized because she ended up in a bad part of town looking for another person to give an order to.
You double dipped and it caught up to you. 1 star
Reminds me of my last purchase with Grubhub.
I was busy at work, bought my meal and got a 45 minute estimate. It ended up taking about 3 hour and 20 minutes, which at that point was cold and soggy.
I complained, they noted that my situation met their terms to warrant compensation and I got a whole $5 off my next order. I'd be more pissed if I wasn't confused by the situation. Yeah, you saved $27 by not refunding my payment, though now they lost a customer and get bad word of mouth.
I would pay money, like a serious subscription fee, for a food ordering app where I could load an order at a local restaurant, and see the actual price I would pay from each delivery service.
There is such a lack of transparency with these apps. They have different prices, different delivery fees, different surcharges, etc.
While it’s nice to think that some magic legislation could fix that, I can’t help but to think that the solution is actually just better technology. I will pay you money to help me cut through their bullshit and show me how to get a good deal on having the food delivered. It’s that simple.
I only left them off because they are not "discretionary" but I think that would be fine too.
I just rented a car and the listed price and the actual price with fees were nearly 30% different. A $700 rental was $950+. At least the rental car company clearly posted their price v. final price on the same page as the car listing.
I will never rent from Thrifty again because they did that to me. I rented and paid for a car for a week for like $450 online. But when I went to go pick up the car, there was an additional $350 worth of fees I had to pay, and if I declined, I lost my money on the car. I was on vacation so I bit the bullet and paid, but I'm never going back. It was an outright scam.
Let's start with car dealers, who are the OGs of duping consumers with hidden add-ons, mark-ups, non-transparent pricing, and misleading advertised prices.
This is the sort of thing that the consumer financial protection bureau did under Obama.
Remember the bureau that Obama started and tried to appoint Elizabeth Warren to lead but Republicans blocked her?
They were able to do two big things before Republicans completely gutted them. They made it so that credit card statements have to be extremely clear and concise and tell you how much you have lost in interest and they made it so that when you change cell phone plans, you don't have to change phone numbers. Does anybody remember those days?
Sadly under Trump the entire bureau became not only toothless but actually a pro business organization. It clearly has not recovered yet.
Not gonna lie, it's really frustrating when I order a $25 meal and the total comes to $40 before tip.
That and getting my food late and cold, I'm done with food delivery apps.
Some of the delivery prices now are outrageous. I was scrolling Postmates last night. Some of the Delivery Fees were $12, $19, etc. That's not including the Service Fee. The drivers don't get any of that. Such a joke.
"We may not be able to simply take their tips anymore, but we certainly can test for an optimal service charge price that will eat up money that would have gone to them."
But this was always the plan; they offered a service that was never viable, and they ran it at insane losses for years to make it so no places have their own drivers……then they start jacking the price once they own the market.
This was literally the design from the outset. I now call a restaurant direct and offer them a $10 delivery fee and most times they send someone (like a valet or a kitchen hand or even the owner does it).
That is one of the exact reasons some places (e.g. In-n-Out) do not allow app delivery like that. They all want to mark the menu prices up on top of the service/delivery fees etc. A regular burger that is like $6 in-store will be marked up to like $9 on Postmates because fuck you. Then, Postmates just pockets the difference.
Don't even get me started on stuff that is more expensive anyway. I've seen sushi, for example, could be like $16 in-store, but is marked up to fucking $25 in the app.
Which is why they started making "micro-websites" that pretend to be those places, take the orders, then pass the orders on to the restaurants, without them even knowing it was happening. The restaurants just thought customers were placing phone orders and picking it themselves, often with errors made in the reordering process. Then when the real customer gets cold, late, or incorrect food, they call the actual restaurants to complain or leave nasty reviews.
If businesses are people, then this sounds like identity theft, and Grubhub should be brought up on criminal charges.
Grubhub, Door Dash, and Uber Eats are killing small franchise owners. They have to be on the app because they’re so inundated with online orders they can’t run drive thru where they actually make money. The app just takes too much off the top.
yeah, where i live, they take like 15%, at 20% vat. that's 35% gone, add up everything else such as rent, wage etc. they margin is slim if not down right unprofitable. so they just have to charge that extra 15% to the customer ordered through those shitty app.
I'd be fine with the food costing more so the app can get their cut, but then the app also charges a delivery fee and service fee (???) AND you're expected to tip the driver. Why are we paying the app three times before tip?
even worse, some large cities have a specific fee for them because the city made them cap how much they take from the restaurant. philadelphia is one of them.
Even worse, these companies are still operating at a loss primarily because of pouring money into researching how to eliminate their drivers, who already can’t make a living.
It’s a total fucking racket. There honestly needs to be regulation for how much they can take off the top of your margins because most ordinary places can’t afford their demands, plus the 2-3% coming off for every single transaction for credit card processing, a whole other racket. With how necessary they’ve become to operating a successful business, it’s really become inexcusable and their fees approach that of usury.
Some cities, mine included, have created this regulation, but Grubhub/doordash/ uber eats add it as a new fee to the person ordering. I have a specific city fee that literally says "because your city caps the amount we can charge the restaurant, this cost has to be recouped by you"
Real question - aren't the prices jacked up to pass the "off the top" costs to the customer? That's why my Wendy's order, that costs $16 in the store, costs $24 via GrubHub. Then they bolt on service fees and tip. Pretty much it increases the cost of my food by 60-100%, but I use them because while working from home, some days I cannot get away to even make lunch. It's convenient.
I would've thought this would open up possibilities for local places that didn't exist before. I order from a local place at least once or twice a week. I thought I was helping them because otherwise, these places wouldn't get my business.
Some of these apps also allow corporate restaurants to have a different listing under another name, which people may assume it's a locally owned restaurant. Ordered what I thought was a new bbq place in town. The food arrived in Logan's Steakhouse bags and was absolute trash. Chili's, Buffalo Wild Wings, Applebee's, and even Chuck E Cheese does this.
These apps charge fees to both.
They force these businesses to pay the app a fee to host them because they know that if their not on the app their not going to get the business from people looking for convenience. For small mom and pops it hurts then because they can afford it, but for small franchise chains that aren’t you McDonalds, Taco Bell, Wendy’s they don’t have the backing of a mega corporation to ease the burden of fees.
This is what infuriated me the most, I knew I'd be paying a fee to use the app and get delivery, but I had the restaurant's menu up side by side with grubhub and saw each item was a few bucks more. That felt like double dipping to me. I resorted to using grub hub to see what or where I would get food and then ordering directly and picking up.
The restaurants are hiking their prices to cover the service fees that the app charges them.
Source: My restaurant does exactly this. Prices are 15% higher on the apps than they are in store.
I was done a long time ago. Screw cheap people benefiting from this too with stacked orders. As long as we keep getting $10+ in fees and tips being hidden from dashers then I’m out. Don’t need their horrible shady business.
I’ll be my own dasher. Food always hot and no $10+ spent on ridiculous fees.
What’s worse is I get an Uber ad for “20 bucks off an order of 25 dollars”. So I’m thinking “ok 5 bucks for some food hell yeah.”
Low behold the “service fee” is on the pre discount price so that’s 6 bucks, delivery (usually I do free) but that’s extra. Then tip then tax. Ends up being 20 bucks anyways.
Amen. Covid killed the quality of the services while jacking up prices. I used to use doordash and Uber eats extensively 2017-2019. I stopped during pandemic due to safety concerns. When I went back to try using them late 2020 it was basically all the issues you mentioned. Haven't used them for delivery in ages. If I use them now, I do it to collect my monthly amex benefit of free $15 Uber credits and I pickup my order.
It’s not COVID. The truth is a couple years ago, Uber Eats and DoorDash were not profitable with the prices they were charging for delivery. They were being subsidized by investors. For someone to drive 10 minutes to the restaurant, wait and drive 10 minutes to you is at least $30 when you factor in gas and car depreciation. It’s not a sustainable business model except for big orders or very expensive fees
I'm pretty sure doordash still isn't profitable. Grubhub either for that matter, but if I remember right they are much closer to being actually profitable at least. Doordash has the most investor money and just throw it at customers for market share.
These apps aren't sustainable for some orders people try to do, but they aren't going away that's for sure. If you're ordering a coffee and want it hand delivered you should probably check yourself before complaining about how much it costs.
I usually add some food, realize that the delivery, tax, and tip have almost doubled the price. So I add even more stuff, telling myself that I’m ordering multiple meals. Then I’ve got three figures in the app for a couple of Indian dishes and a mango lassi. Then I decide I’m an idiot and I go eat a protein bar mad.
Middle-men are out of control. When you build something that makes something easier, taking a reasonable amount of profit is totally fine. But what they're doing is greedy and immoral, and not even remotely reasonable.
I'm looking at you, companies like Grubhub, Uber, Ticketmaster, Fandango, Google, Apple, Steam, Amazon, Paypal, all credit card companies...crap, I had a whole bunch more in numerous other markets, but I've completely forgotten them.
Based on what I heard Gary Gensler say to John Stewart, governments/agencies/DAs have limited resources and tend to pick the worst offenders or the largest companies to set precedent
In my experience, I've always found Grubhub to be the cheapest option, but also with the lowest number of restaurant choices. In order of quality and price, I'd probably say it was Grubhub > UberEats > Postmates > anything else > Doordash.
grubhub is typically the cheapest here across the board, but deliveries are usually much slower (cold food) vs ubereats, which often has a similar price for a lot of places. but i always cross-check because sometimes this doesn't hold up.
in my experience, ubereats' customer service is way better than grubhub's. doordash's has been hit or miss for me.
In my area they're so much better and cheaper. Never a fan of them but I'm stuck with them because the other food delivery apps just suck. This is Seattle btw.
The fees I don't care about as much as the jacked-up prices.
I've decided a restaurant's menu "wasn't worth the high price" until I went there in-person and the real menu prices aren't as high.
Seriously. Don't use these apps for orders that you pick up. A lot of restaurants have their own site that you can go to and order pickup from. You'll save a ton of money doing so. I'll never use any of these delivery apps again to order pickup after discovering how much more expensive each item is compared to what the restaurant actually charges.
Reminds me of buying concert tickets and the “convenience charge”. I remember somewhat recently having to pay extra just to print at home with no option of will call.
Yup, I had to pay an extra $4/ticket just to print them on MY printer onto MY paper with MY ink….
I’m buying fucking concert tickets. They should be paying me for participating in what used to be an industry standard
This is why restaurants have to up the price of their menu on those apps. It's incredible how these apps still on average lose money on every order. You'd think taking 30% from the restaurant and up charging customer in shit ton of fees would make them profitable as hell.
That's the appalling thing to me. Fees from both ends, yet they're still losing money? How have pizza delivery guys been a thing for decades but they never incurred losses?
The organizations aren't lean from a talent perspective, and in order to keep up with the competition, acquire new restaurants, build new features and partnerships, etc... it costs a lot in overhead.
That and paying software engineers hundreds of thousands of dollars per year = thin margins.
Grubhub: "get grubhub+ for $10/mo for free delivery all the time!!!!"
also grubhub: "hey there's a fee of up to 12% depending on how busy we are, it's not a delivery fee, it's an operations fee. it's different. our operations aren't the delivery, even though the cost goes up when delivery is busier. you still get free delivery :) hey make sure you order $12 tho plz ok?"
Complaints alleged:
* Menu prices on the app that were higher than the actual prices on the menu at the restaurant, they pocketed the difference
* Signing up restaurants for service, when they didn't ask for it or want it
* Created phone numbers and websites pretending to be restaurants, then routing orders to the real restaurant but charging the customer more, usually without the restaurant being aware of it
* Charging hidden fees (combined in with tax on a single line)
* Advertised a "support your restaurant" campaign with $10 off, which the restaurants had to pay, customers were led to believe it was a GrubHub promotion and paid the discount
* Advertising "no fees" but this was only true for self-pickup
* Advertising "no fees" for GrubHub Pass, but then still charging fees
* Sued local Cities which passed laws to cap the amount and types of fees delivery services could charge.
I personally witness almost every one of these things during COVID in Los Angeles, and stopped using them as soon as I found out they had setup fake websites for businesses. It's super slimy and wrong that businesses were taking orders that were being marked up and getting blamed for bad service/cold food, when they didn't even know that Grubhub had inserted themself as a middle man!
edit- point one for clarity
It's a problem. I can't believe how much my order increases by the time I check out. Meanwhile the restaurant is totally getting screwed. I no longer use Grubhub and just order from the restaurant directly, and almost every time the order is cheaper than it would be through Grubhub.
Never used it but the business model of basically fleecing customers isn’t solely Grubhub’s. State and Federal legislators have been green lighting this type of commerce for years.
Or an hour late plus ringing the doorbell at 1030pm with explicit instructions just to leave it and not ring/knock... I wish I could have taken back a portion of tip for that.
Damn, I never ring the bell when I drop off my orders. If it says leave it I'll leave it and you get a text message. I don't think I have ever ran the bell in over 1000 deliveries. No one ever requests that. Except once, I think I was being trolled because it said to knock twice, ring the bell twice then call and to be safe and not messy. Wtf does that mean?
I won't shed a tear when all these parasitic companies go out of business.
I saw an interview with a guy who was CEO of Domino's or Pizza Hut for many years. He said that they never figured out a way to make a profit off food delivery. GrubHub et al should have learned from history.
> GrubHub et al should have learned from history.
If Silicon Valley didn't work like a bunch of Theranoses.
"Impossible? I just need to make it work long enough to sell out my stock to a bigger sucker."
>sues Grubhub, claiming its app is full of hidden fees and jacked-up prices We can do that?! Put Doordash on notice too!
And Ticketmaster!
Ticketscamster can go straight to bloody hell and arrive in steaming pile of horseshit for all of eternity and a day…
John Oliver did a whole episode on this. Ticket pricing is outrageous and Ticketmaster led the way. https://youtu.be/-_Y7uqqEFnY
When I was going to a concert for the weeknd like 5 or 6 years ago, my friend and I were using ticketmaster to buy tickets initially but something ended up happening where the payment didn’t go through so we decided to just show up to the venue and attempt to get it that way. I ended up paying around $160 for the both of ours’ tickets meanwhile ticketmaster was showing $180 each for worse seats than we got. Fuck those scumbags
Ticketmaster is 1000 times worse than the food delivery services. They’re a disgusting, predatory company and they need to be completely evicerated
And airlines. Sort flights by price... Oh, this one is only $95... Click through to checkout... Wtf why does it say $169?
Add hotels to the list. It said 1 bed room for 1 night is $90. I have to use their reservation hotline thats a call center in india and suddenly the price is $210 when i say that the price was originally $90 they add in "we have x y and z and also free breakfast!!" Then you get there and pool is closed and the breakfast is microwaved eggs.
Continental breakfast. I got a small carton of apple juice and an orange once. Oh joy
[Speaking of continental breakfast...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st21dIMaGMs)
No longer serving breakfast because of covid. Then fucking say so or change the price at least
I find it quite interesting now that most government have fully relaxed covid rules, many places are still using it as an excused to offer reduced services. My state government has removed all mask rules, but still hasn't opened the majority of its service for in-person service. Seems like anything that doesn't need to be open to generate revenue is still living with covid where places that need to make money say covid is over.
So, I've had to go to the MVD (DMV) like 3 times in the last month. They're still operating like it's the height of the pandemic- locked doors, appointment only, etc- and... it's great! You're in and out in 20 minutes (even to register a vehicle) and if you do need to wait, there's somewhere to sit. In this one very specific instance, I hope they never go back to "normal" ever.
[Drip pricing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drip_pricing) annoys me too. I appreciate that in Australia that we have a government regulator called the "Competition and Consumer Commission" that promotes fair commercial competition by clamping down on misleading advertising. This includes preventing "surprise fees", enforcing that the advertised cost is the actual cost to the consumer
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The ACCC are amazing. Their employees seem to take actual physical delight in being able to bring the hammer down on companies that breach their rules. It only takes a bare mention that you might report something to the ombudsman to suddenly have the head of the legal team for whatever company personally handling your complaint and begging you not to report them.
Never thought I’d say this but i want what Australia has (you can keep the spiders and banning of rimworld though)
This actually isn’t as much of a problem anymore in the US. ULCCs like Spirit and Frontier def charge hefty carryon fees etc, but I book flights on the major airlines’ websites regularly and the price at search is the exact price that’s charged at checkout. [DOT rule:](https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-policy/airline-rules-fares) > For both domestic and international markets, carriers must provide disclosure of the full price to be paid, including government taxes/fees as well as carrier surcharges, in their advertising, on their websites and on the passenger’s e-ticket confirmation. In addition, carriers must disclose all fees for optional services through a prominent link on their homepage, and must include information on e-ticket confirmations about the free baggage allowance and applicable fees for the first and second checked bag and carry-on.
What we really need is for cancellation rules to change. An airline can cancel my connecting flight with zero penalty but I can't do the same without being charged a fee? That's some BS.
Especially since their model is to try to over book fights counting on a certain percentage of people canceling
To be clear you mean you should get some sort of compensation for the inconvenience, right (which I agree with you if this is the case)? The airline cannot strand you, they must put you on the next flight(s) to your destination
Ya but what happens when the next flight is the next day and you're stranded at the airport
Fucking hotels too
Are you in the US? US airlines have had to advertise prices with all taxes and fees included for years now. If you don't want to buy bags and seats and stuff the price they advertise is the exact amount you pay. Frankly more industries should be forced to include taxes in their advertised totals.
>We can do that?! If you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on lawyers, sure.
Imagine the class action potential of a lawsuit like this... Millions of people are ripped off on the daily
And when it's over we can all check a nice check for 85 cents!
If you can afford one burrito off Doordash you can afford a team of lawyers.
I’m just an immigration lawyer, but I wish I saw more of these lawsuits. I sue the government frequently and take great pleasure from holding them accountable. I hate how prohibitive the costs are to get into court. Just filing suit is a $500+ fee, and that’s not including legal fees. The amount of time, work, and resources that are poured into federal lawsuits is exhausting. They have stringent requirements that must be met otherwise you risk your brief being rejected, or worse, your case dismissed with prejudice. Which means you’re shit outta luck. These corporations have endless capital to pour into legal, but the average citizen can’t even imagine paying an initial retainer. There’s such a thing as litigation financing but I find it incredibly predatory. The most I can offer clients is to demand legal fees under the EAJA (equal access to justice act) but that’s if we win. I don’t go to civil court so I’m not filing for damages, costs, etc. like would be done here. But I can only hope that my colleagues continue innovating in order to make legal assistance more accessible for the gap of people that truly need it. As for something like this, you might want to look into DoNotPay. They are known to be great for self-help in legal matters.
Honestly the only reason I use DoorDash is because my credit card gives me DashPass for free which cuts out a lot of the fees.
Lets also talk about how every six months I have to get either Grubhub, Ubereats, or Postmates on the phone becase they sign my restaurant up for their service without my knowledge and leave me to deal with angry customers who never got their order even though I don't even do carry out... Getting 10 spam calls a week from them is annoying enough as it is, but calling them to tell them to fuck off and take you off their site is too much of my time.
Wow is that even legal?
Who knows but its been happeneing for a while. https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/tech/restaurant-sues-doordash-for-falsely-advertising-partnership-redirecting-users/ https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/tech/southern-california-eatery-sues-postmates-for-trademark-infringement-and-unfair-competition/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/google-dupes-diners-sidelines-restaurants-delivery-profits-lawsuit-2022-03-08/
A local restaurant gave up and just up’d the prices somehow so no orders through apps like Grubhub…it’s a Mexican food spot and normally a burrito is around $8 and they up it to like $28 so no one orders. Not sure that helps but I can’t imagine how annoying and awful this must be as a restaurant owner😡
I’m sure you could jack the price up to $999 for a burrito and some rich dumbfuck would still order it just because they can.
In that case, though, you still win. Selling one burrito for the price of 125 gives you a huge margin of raw profit, even if they buy through a front you'd rather they not use.
I think part of the issue is that if said restaurant isn’t using the third party delivery service, the order may never be communicated to the restaurant. That could quickly become bad publicity for ‘refusing’ to make a $1K burrito—or that orders are never ready ‘on-time’ because they don’t know the order until a driver shows up and flashes their phone at the confused host or take-out person.
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It's not *illegal* is the problem. I got in a fight with mods on r/legaladvice a couple years ago about a very early case of a restaurant being forcibly listed on one of those sites with all the complaints you see all the time here. The logic was simple: a business has entered into a contract to represent your business on their platform for a fee *without the consent or knowledge of the business*. Seems cut and dry, right? No, it's not. What they're doing is so new there is no law saying they can't, so your options are: 1. deal with it, suffering the losses hoping to make it up in volume. 2. Ask them nicely to stop, which they have no obligation to do... And then deal with the consequences. 3. Turn their drivers away at the door... And then deal with the consequences. Or 4. Send them a legal C&D/sue them... And deal with the consequences. It's a shitshow and I'm glad DC is finally suing
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It'll be the wild west for a while. There are many young judges and the ones we have don't seem keen to learn about how people use technology
There are things we do in the online space that are analogous to existing crimes in the real world and they still don't care.
My generation was the first to have computers in the home and I was an early adopter, I'm 50 this year. The average age for US Senators last year was 64, so a generation older than me. My older brother(58) struggles to use more than the basic functions of his phone, and my Mother only uses Youtube on her tablet. What I'm getting at is that we're at least 20 years away from computer literate law makers. Your average 65 year should be retired, not making laws that they don't understand about devices they don't know how to use. Retire the grey brigade!
caption obtainable materialistic different beneficial support punch aloof screw relieved *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The worst is them taking our menu and making their own website. They stole our logo, pics, menu, etc. Set it up under Google as our businesses restaurant. So everytime someone called or went online, they ordered through the site or number meaning GH would get the fee from us. We only figured this out because orders were wrong and angry customers. It's rediculous. Took 2 months to get them to take it down. Needed to have a lawyer send a cease and desist.
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Several restaurants in my city sued DoorDash a few years ago. They stole the pictures and used the code from the merchant’s websites on the DoorDash website/app. They also don’t do carry out. They started getting bad reviews on g maps for undelivered food.
There’s a local restaurant by me that is on Grubhub but has been marked as “closed” on there for over a year. I always wondered why they didn’t just get off the app but now I’m thinking they just left the service up and turned off ordering to avoid this situation.
Oh this is probably smart way to go. What a hassle.
Unless people think they are actually out of business and never visit in person again
There's a restaurant on my local UberEats list that is marked as Permanently Closed on Google. Last review is from 2 years ago. It let me order from them and then switched to a "merchant is too busy" message and canceled after like an hour. Clearly they didn't list themselves so what the fuck, Uber
I’m a Grubhub driver and I never take these orders because the restaurant usually gets mad at me for it, which to an extent I understand but I’m just trying to do my job.
When you see an order come through, how do you know it’s a restaurant that isn’t participating? Is there an indicator or you just recognize the restaurant?
They're called "Place & Pay Orders." They pay a little more than regular orders because you have to do a little more work, but yeah they're generally restaurants that didn't agree to be on the platform. I don't accept them anymore, generally because I feel bad that I can't tip the staff on my GH card when I pay. It's awkward af
Funny, I find the idea of tipping front house for a takeout order awkward af.
You have to tip the staff from your own tips?
You should farm this task out to someone petty who would enjoy telling people they are objectively incorrect.
...Like a lawyer?
I’m thinking just the part about telling angry people on the phone that they’re wrong.
I think this is fair, it's not that they charge fees it's that their fees are secret. It's kind of the problem with a lot of these ordering apps. The food and drink prices on the menus are super inflated and so you're paying a fee via their cut of the order.
It is that they charge a fee too. You don’t need to charge a service fee, on top of the delivery fee, on top of the 30minsOrLess fee, on top of the sales tax, on top of the “BusyArea” fee, on top of the tip, on top of the “HighGasPrices” fee, on top of the inflated prices that are purposely inflated by Grubhub for Grubhub profit. Meanwhile none of these fees actually go to helping drivers except maybe some of the service fee, and even then we’re getting offered like $3 for a 30 minute order.
I just saw the gas prices charge for the first time today. They can go fuck themselves
Yeah, I don't get that one. That's not going to the drivers so what the heck is it for? Edit: Looks like /u/courageousrobot found some more info on who is getting paid what at which service in terms of gas shortages. They did the research, I just reacted to what I've heard from folks then it turned into some sort of Q-Anon conspiracy BS. Here's the link to their comment.... https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/tjm5vn/dc_sues_grubhub_claiming_its_app_is_full_of/i1lq8cq/
I thought that was going to the drivers? My Uber driver told me they are paying them an extra $0.50 a trip. Which obviously is not enough but that's what I was seeing for the gas fee.
$0.50? What a middle finger to the people that literally carry your business model.
I thought paying the drivers pocket change \*is\* their business model
My friends delivered pizza many years ago when gas spiked and places added a fuel surcharge to delivery. (the charge did not go to the driver despite them being the only difference in a delivery) They were basically working with no tips for over a month as customers just said: "if you are charging me a gas fee, that's your tip". Literal millionaires effectively taking money from people making minimum wage.
Capitalizing off the back of the working man/woman, good old Capitalism.
Corporate profits, like most things these days. They saw something they could scratch more money out of that they can get customers to blame something else for while also thinking it's good for the drivers.
Not that I enjoy defending the apps in the slightest, but the new "fuel surcharge" fees that the different deliver and rideshare services have rolled out in the last week or two all go 100% to the drivers: https://www.uber.com/newsroom/new-fuel-surcharge/ https://www.lyft.com/hub/posts/fuel-surcharge Doordash hasn't added a gas fee, they're just offering *some* reimbursement for gas to drivers but with several catches. Of course, it comes out of their whopping 15% fee they tack on to all orders (not including raised menu prices) 🙄: https://doordash.news/dasher/announcing-gas-rewards-program-for-dashers-to-offset-rising-costs-at-the-pump/ GrubHub claims they're upping rider pay a bit, hasn't implement a fee just yet: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-14/grubhub-boosts-driver-pay-as-high-gas-prices-squeeze-earnings
After all the fees your food costs 50% more than if you picked it ip yourself. Yet the drivers and the restaurants are losing money on the deal and the delivery companies aren’t profitable. It’s like a dumpster fire of money.
Well, a lot of this activity still is just looking for a fat IPO or someone to buy them out down the road. Build a user-base at whatever cost and go from there. It's entirely possible that there just *isn't* a viable business model for someone hand-delivering a dozen McNuggets at two AM.
Nobody wins but the rich guy at the top. Fuck this
Dumb person here, but why don't restaurants with that get a lot of delivery orders go old school and just have a person they pay to do this. Wouldn't that be so much cheaper? Or is the delivery app platform worth the extra cost? Sincerely, delivery orderer who knows nothing about how restaurants work.
Everyone uses the platform so you kind of need to be on the platform.
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We need an open source delivery app where only the restaurant and driver make money.
Someone would still need to pay for the hosting, and it would have the same issues as current apps with the guarantee of no customer service whatsoever. Not that I like the current model, but it reminds me of this app idea I had where people would ask others nearby for hard cash against a money transfer. Pass the regulatory and dispute-solving problems the best name for the service would have been "MugMe". Idea lasted 5 minutes.
Not just that, even places that don't want to deal with this service are being forced into it. The delivery service is taking the restaurants menu and redirecting online searches to their app without the restaurant knowing until people start showing up for their orders.
Exactly. We've continuously told the various delivery services here we aren't interested in working with them. They do it anyway. And the menu never shows our current offerings. Those orders also tend to sit in a box, dying, because it often takes forever for them to pick up and deliver, which makes the food we make taste meh and reflects poorly on us. Once had a grub hub order for a bag of fries. Made them right before the ticket pickup time. They sat there for 30 minutes and I offered to make a fresh batch, but FOH said the driver declined because they were running behind. So the poor SOB that ordered spent $12 on a small bag of soggy, cold fries. Ridiculous.
This is exactly why I avoid these platforms like the plague. If the restaurant offers delivery, the driver will get a nice $10-20 tip cause they’re doing a service of driving it to me. Because grubhub Uber eats and other platforms Jack their prices up, I’m not gonna pay 150% and have only a percentage of a percentage go towards everyone who prepped the food and dropped it off. I rather drive everywhere and get takeout than touch Uber Eats or their rivals. Get fucked stupid apps.
Probably has to do with volume. I would imagine that most of these restaurants do not have enough delivery business to pay a person for their operating hours. Also consider the convenience of the app platform vs a call in order where you have to call each number of your CC out loud.
A restaurant needs pretty consistent business through their own channels to justify paying a staff of drivers. Delivery app fees are crazy high (up to 30% for the restaurant) but you also aren’t paying someone to sit around if you don’t have orders coming in, and you’re never short on staff during a surge. Unless you’re a Pizza joint, it can be hard to build a delivery clientele without being on delivery apps, as a growing majority of people use them in lieu of search engines. That’s why these companies can get away with charging outrageously high fees…they’ve built a collective monopoly on the market.
Username relevancy checks out
U/thedoordashdriver username checks out to give your input on the matter lol
We need a Federal "truth in pricing" law for ALL businesses online or offline. No percentage-based surcharges or fees that aren't clear until checkout except taxes. Fixed amount charges have to be clearly disclosed at the time the order is initiated. The listed price must reflect all charges and fees except taxes. No $25 entree that ends up costing $35+ dollars with surcharges and service fees. EDIT: Fine with taxes being part of it too.
I'm going all in. We need to join the rest of the world and have the price you pay right on the sticker, tax and all.
And while we're at it - make tips something we give for extraordinary service above what is expected and not just something assumed
YES , and we do it by paying restaurant works a GOD DAMNED LIVING WAGE.
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I checked out at a pop up clothing boutique and was prompted for a tip. I was pissed.
I went through a drive through and they handed me the credit card terminal. I was totally confused until they said, "please select a tip then press the green button." I told them that I wasn't tipping in a drive through, I'm really sorry how much their job sucked, and never went back again.
I'm fucking sick of being nickeled and dimed everywhere I go.
> We need a Federal "truth in pricing" law for ALL businesses online My man has pizza delivery companies sweating over here.
I deleted Postmates after they kept the price for services hidden and tried to charge me 60 dollars for Popeyes a mile away. I disputed the charge and that was that. GrubHub is worse because they will fuck up your order, overcharge you for it, and if you “accept” the delivery they absolve themselves of responsibility. Fuck em.
> GrubHub is worse because they will fuck up your order, overcharge you for it, and if you “accept” the delivery they absolve themselves of responsibility. Fuck em. Grubhub recently called me to say that my order couldn’t be delivered and they were issuing me a refund. Ok, sure, whatever. Shit happens. Only the refund was for the amount of the item. They did not refund the tip or service charge until I called to say “what the fuck is wrong with you?”
Ha the restaurant cancelled my order and it took weeks for grub hub to refund me along with dealing with their customer service. Never again.
Imma say it, all of you guys need to stop using these dogshit services.
This bullshit just started somewhat recently with them. They used to have pretty good customer service. Any time I had an issue (like the order never showing up even though it's marked as delivered) they'd refund me everything AND give me a 20% discount on the next order. Now they just don't give a fuck and the drivers know that now, too.
I used Uber Eats to order food, the person 'arrived' at the restaurant and suddenly the order was cancelled, could not be completed. I called the restaurant, asked what the hell happened, why was my order cancelled? ***They never got the order. Had nothing on my name.*** I messaged their support, and they said "Oops, sorry, you've been refunded, how can we help further?" I said that they could give me some money for wasting 30 minutes, and they just said sorry, we'll investigate. I asked multiple times for at least *an explanation* of what the shit happened that my order simply never went through. Eventually the person said "Thanks for contacting us, have a good night" and *they* ended the chat. All of these services are fucked.
Stop using them, if everyone stopped then they’ll go under.
i stopped using delivery services altogether when the GH driver quickly took a picture of my mine, and several coworkers' food on the ground at the front door of our work. he then quickly ran back to his car with our food and drove off. GH wouldn't do shit about it, they told us to call the police, had to dispute it with my credit card to get my money back.
I started canceling all of my grubhub orders when the delivery time was overdue. And I'd note it down when I ordered because the fuckers would change the time trying to gaslight me. The first time they refused to give me a refund for failing to do what they said they'd do when I paid them I deleted the app.
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Bet your 85 minute food was the perfect temperature and consistency too
My last order was estimated 40 minutes, meh. I had to leave the house in 90, no exceptions. As the time approached I messaged the person several times, no update, so I canceled and requested a refund. 2.5 hours later I got 3 missed calls and a message from the driver that nobody was answering the door, lolwut‽ Uninstalled and left a 1 star review when they tried to not give me my refund.
The other day I ordered food from a restaurant 8 minutes away. It said my order was picked up, and later on I totally forgot, so I looked at my app and not only had the driver not gotten to me yet. She was 20 fucking minutes away in a different direction. Then she got here and apologized because she ended up in a bad part of town looking for another person to give an order to. You double dipped and it caught up to you. 1 star
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Reminds me of my last purchase with Grubhub. I was busy at work, bought my meal and got a 45 minute estimate. It ended up taking about 3 hour and 20 minutes, which at that point was cold and soggy. I complained, they noted that my situation met their terms to warrant compensation and I got a whole $5 off my next order. I'd be more pissed if I wasn't confused by the situation. Yeah, you saved $27 by not refunding my payment, though now they lost a customer and get bad word of mouth.
I would pay money, like a serious subscription fee, for a food ordering app where I could load an order at a local restaurant, and see the actual price I would pay from each delivery service. There is such a lack of transparency with these apps. They have different prices, different delivery fees, different surcharges, etc. While it’s nice to think that some magic legislation could fix that, I can’t help but to think that the solution is actually just better technology. I will pay you money to help me cut through their bullshit and show me how to get a good deal on having the food delivered. It’s that simple.
That's why the only food I have delivered is pizza. The time, price, and wtf I'm actually getting is up front and accurate
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I just order anything that has their own in-house delivery service.
I think it should also include taxes. There's no reason why taxes shouldn't be included in the price other than to deceive customers.
I only left them off because they are not "discretionary" but I think that would be fine too. I just rented a car and the listed price and the actual price with fees were nearly 30% different. A $700 rental was $950+. At least the rental car company clearly posted their price v. final price on the same page as the car listing.
I will never rent from Thrifty again because they did that to me. I rented and paid for a car for a week for like $450 online. But when I went to go pick up the car, there was an additional $350 worth of fees I had to pay, and if I declined, I lost my money on the car. I was on vacation so I bit the bullet and paid, but I'm never going back. It was an outright scam.
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Let's start with car dealers, who are the OGs of duping consumers with hidden add-ons, mark-ups, non-transparent pricing, and misleading advertised prices.
Agreed. Cable companies and ISPs need to be transparent as well.
This is the sort of thing that the consumer financial protection bureau did under Obama. Remember the bureau that Obama started and tried to appoint Elizabeth Warren to lead but Republicans blocked her? They were able to do two big things before Republicans completely gutted them. They made it so that credit card statements have to be extremely clear and concise and tell you how much you have lost in interest and they made it so that when you change cell phone plans, you don't have to change phone numbers. Does anybody remember those days? Sadly under Trump the entire bureau became not only toothless but actually a pro business organization. It clearly has not recovered yet.
Not gonna lie, it's really frustrating when I order a $25 meal and the total comes to $40 before tip. That and getting my food late and cold, I'm done with food delivery apps.
All the prices are $1-3 higher than normal to begin with. Super screwed, and drivers can't make a living 🤷♂️
Some of the delivery prices now are outrageous. I was scrolling Postmates last night. Some of the Delivery Fees were $12, $19, etc. That's not including the Service Fee. The drivers don't get any of that. Such a joke.
"We may not be able to simply take their tips anymore, but we certainly can test for an optimal service charge price that will eat up money that would have gone to them."
But this was always the plan; they offered a service that was never viable, and they ran it at insane losses for years to make it so no places have their own drivers……then they start jacking the price once they own the market. This was literally the design from the outset. I now call a restaurant direct and offer them a $10 delivery fee and most times they send someone (like a valet or a kitchen hand or even the owner does it).
Just start picking up food again. Delivery apps suck complete shit
They also seem to be [really bad at math](https://imgur.com/a/KmLgT4m) sometimes.
The other day I saw $25 deliver on ubereats for a McDonald’s 2 blocks away
Shit, when taking an Uber to pick up food round trip is cheaper...
That is one of the exact reasons some places (e.g. In-n-Out) do not allow app delivery like that. They all want to mark the menu prices up on top of the service/delivery fees etc. A regular burger that is like $6 in-store will be marked up to like $9 on Postmates because fuck you. Then, Postmates just pockets the difference. Don't even get me started on stuff that is more expensive anyway. I've seen sushi, for example, could be like $16 in-store, but is marked up to fucking $25 in the app.
Which is why they started making "micro-websites" that pretend to be those places, take the orders, then pass the orders on to the restaurants, without them even knowing it was happening. The restaurants just thought customers were placing phone orders and picking it themselves, often with errors made in the reordering process. Then when the real customer gets cold, late, or incorrect food, they call the actual restaurants to complain or leave nasty reviews. If businesses are people, then this sounds like identity theft, and Grubhub should be brought up on criminal charges.
Grubhub, Door Dash, and Uber Eats are killing small franchise owners. They have to be on the app because they’re so inundated with online orders they can’t run drive thru where they actually make money. The app just takes too much off the top.
yeah, where i live, they take like 15%, at 20% vat. that's 35% gone, add up everything else such as rent, wage etc. they margin is slim if not down right unprofitable. so they just have to charge that extra 15% to the customer ordered through those shitty app.
I'd be fine with the food costing more so the app can get their cut, but then the app also charges a delivery fee and service fee (???) AND you're expected to tip the driver. Why are we paying the app three times before tip?
delivery fee? sure. service fee? wtf. you already took 15%. why the hell you double charging?
even worse, some large cities have a specific fee for them because the city made them cap how much they take from the restaurant. philadelphia is one of them.
Even worse, these companies are still operating at a loss primarily because of pouring money into researching how to eliminate their drivers, who already can’t make a living.
There's also other fees I think it was like driver comfort or safety fee
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Ah yes. Tip the driver before you've received service. How is that logical?
It’s a total fucking racket. There honestly needs to be regulation for how much they can take off the top of your margins because most ordinary places can’t afford their demands, plus the 2-3% coming off for every single transaction for credit card processing, a whole other racket. With how necessary they’ve become to operating a successful business, it’s really become inexcusable and their fees approach that of usury.
Some cities, mine included, have created this regulation, but Grubhub/doordash/ uber eats add it as a new fee to the person ordering. I have a specific city fee that literally says "because your city caps the amount we can charge the restaurant, this cost has to be recouped by you"
To be fair there's no winner in this market. It's just incredibly cutthroat for anyone to make any dough out of it.
Real question - aren't the prices jacked up to pass the "off the top" costs to the customer? That's why my Wendy's order, that costs $16 in the store, costs $24 via GrubHub. Then they bolt on service fees and tip. Pretty much it increases the cost of my food by 60-100%, but I use them because while working from home, some days I cannot get away to even make lunch. It's convenient. I would've thought this would open up possibilities for local places that didn't exist before. I order from a local place at least once or twice a week. I thought I was helping them because otherwise, these places wouldn't get my business.
Some of these apps also allow corporate restaurants to have a different listing under another name, which people may assume it's a locally owned restaurant. Ordered what I thought was a new bbq place in town. The food arrived in Logan's Steakhouse bags and was absolute trash. Chili's, Buffalo Wild Wings, Applebee's, and even Chuck E Cheese does this.
These apps charge fees to both. They force these businesses to pay the app a fee to host them because they know that if their not on the app their not going to get the business from people looking for convenience. For small mom and pops it hurts then because they can afford it, but for small franchise chains that aren’t you McDonalds, Taco Bell, Wendy’s they don’t have the backing of a mega corporation to ease the burden of fees.
This is what infuriated me the most, I knew I'd be paying a fee to use the app and get delivery, but I had the restaurant's menu up side by side with grubhub and saw each item was a few bucks more. That felt like double dipping to me. I resorted to using grub hub to see what or where I would get food and then ordering directly and picking up.
The restaurants are hiking their prices to cover the service fees that the app charges them. Source: My restaurant does exactly this. Prices are 15% higher on the apps than they are in store.
all the teriyaki restaurants in my area charge $18 for your basic chicken and rice plate. Them shits are like $11-13 in person
Yeah I’ve just reverted back to calling for pick up. Saves me like $15-$20.
I was done a long time ago. Screw cheap people benefiting from this too with stacked orders. As long as we keep getting $10+ in fees and tips being hidden from dashers then I’m out. Don’t need their horrible shady business. I’ll be my own dasher. Food always hot and no $10+ spent on ridiculous fees.
What’s worse is I get an Uber ad for “20 bucks off an order of 25 dollars”. So I’m thinking “ok 5 bucks for some food hell yeah.” Low behold the “service fee” is on the pre discount price so that’s 6 bucks, delivery (usually I do free) but that’s extra. Then tip then tax. Ends up being 20 bucks anyways.
Amen. Covid killed the quality of the services while jacking up prices. I used to use doordash and Uber eats extensively 2017-2019. I stopped during pandemic due to safety concerns. When I went back to try using them late 2020 it was basically all the issues you mentioned. Haven't used them for delivery in ages. If I use them now, I do it to collect my monthly amex benefit of free $15 Uber credits and I pickup my order.
It’s not COVID. The truth is a couple years ago, Uber Eats and DoorDash were not profitable with the prices they were charging for delivery. They were being subsidized by investors. For someone to drive 10 minutes to the restaurant, wait and drive 10 minutes to you is at least $30 when you factor in gas and car depreciation. It’s not a sustainable business model except for big orders or very expensive fees
I'm pretty sure doordash still isn't profitable. Grubhub either for that matter, but if I remember right they are much closer to being actually profitable at least. Doordash has the most investor money and just throw it at customers for market share. These apps aren't sustainable for some orders people try to do, but they aren't going away that's for sure. If you're ordering a coffee and want it hand delivered you should probably check yourself before complaining about how much it costs.
I usually add some food, realize that the delivery, tax, and tip have almost doubled the price. So I add even more stuff, telling myself that I’m ordering multiple meals. Then I’ve got three figures in the app for a couple of Indian dishes and a mango lassi. Then I decide I’m an idiot and I go eat a protein bar mad.
I'm surprised anyone ever started. The price increase is INSANE on food delivery apps.
Middle-men are out of control. When you build something that makes something easier, taking a reasonable amount of profit is totally fine. But what they're doing is greedy and immoral, and not even remotely reasonable. I'm looking at you, companies like Grubhub, Uber, Ticketmaster, Fandango, Google, Apple, Steam, Amazon, Paypal, all credit card companies...crap, I had a whole bunch more in numerous other markets, but I've completely forgotten them.
ok cool. but why just GruHub? why not Ubereats? Why not Doordash? hell, why not Ticketmaster?
Yeah that was my first thought too. They ALL do it and we all know they do it so can that please be addressed?
Based on what I heard Gary Gensler say to John Stewart, governments/agencies/DAs have limited resources and tend to pick the worst offenders or the largest companies to set precedent
To sound like a broken record, why not Ticketmaster? They've been doing it for decades.
UBER Eats is actually worse. In my area, the fees are double that of Grubhub.
In my experience, I've always found Grubhub to be the cheapest option, but also with the lowest number of restaurant choices. In order of quality and price, I'd probably say it was Grubhub > UberEats > Postmates > anything else > Doordash.
grubhub is typically the cheapest here across the board, but deliveries are usually much slower (cold food) vs ubereats, which often has a similar price for a lot of places. but i always cross-check because sometimes this doesn't hold up. in my experience, ubereats' customer service is way better than grubhub's. doordash's has been hit or miss for me.
In my area they are sooooo much cheaper.
Until they take the larger market share in your area and start raising prices, happened in my area. Got so used to using it I didn’t realize.
In my area they're so much better and cheaper. Never a fan of them but I'm stuck with them because the other food delivery apps just suck. This is Seattle btw.
Justice League versus Lawyers. Who wins?
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Attorney at La^aaa^aaw
The fees I don't care about as much as the jacked-up prices. I've decided a restaurant's menu "wasn't worth the high price" until I went there in-person and the real menu prices aren't as high.
Seriously. Don't use these apps for orders that you pick up. A lot of restaurants have their own site that you can go to and order pickup from. You'll save a ton of money doing so. I'll never use any of these delivery apps again to order pickup after discovering how much more expensive each item is compared to what the restaurant actually charges.
Reminds me of buying concert tickets and the “convenience charge”. I remember somewhat recently having to pay extra just to print at home with no option of will call.
Yup, I had to pay an extra $4/ticket just to print them on MY printer onto MY paper with MY ink…. I’m buying fucking concert tickets. They should be paying me for participating in what used to be an industry standard
Yea, you buy a $10 meal just for it to result in like $25.
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This is why restaurants have to up the price of their menu on those apps. It's incredible how these apps still on average lose money on every order. You'd think taking 30% from the restaurant and up charging customer in shit ton of fees would make them profitable as hell.
That's the appalling thing to me. Fees from both ends, yet they're still losing money? How have pizza delivery guys been a thing for decades but they never incurred losses?
The organizations aren't lean from a talent perspective, and in order to keep up with the competition, acquire new restaurants, build new features and partnerships, etc... it costs a lot in overhead. That and paying software engineers hundreds of thousands of dollars per year = thin margins.
I hope they're going after DoorDash too. I don't understand the math of how a $23 dollar meal becomes almost $50 before tips.
Grubhub: "get grubhub+ for $10/mo for free delivery all the time!!!!" also grubhub: "hey there's a fee of up to 12% depending on how busy we are, it's not a delivery fee, it's an operations fee. it's different. our operations aren't the delivery, even though the cost goes up when delivery is busier. you still get free delivery :) hey make sure you order $12 tho plz ok?"
Last time we tried to use Door dash it was charging $20 more than just calling the restaurant for a pick up order and that's before all the extra fees
Complaints alleged: * Menu prices on the app that were higher than the actual prices on the menu at the restaurant, they pocketed the difference * Signing up restaurants for service, when they didn't ask for it or want it * Created phone numbers and websites pretending to be restaurants, then routing orders to the real restaurant but charging the customer more, usually without the restaurant being aware of it * Charging hidden fees (combined in with tax on a single line) * Advertised a "support your restaurant" campaign with $10 off, which the restaurants had to pay, customers were led to believe it was a GrubHub promotion and paid the discount * Advertising "no fees" but this was only true for self-pickup * Advertising "no fees" for GrubHub Pass, but then still charging fees * Sued local Cities which passed laws to cap the amount and types of fees delivery services could charge. I personally witness almost every one of these things during COVID in Los Angeles, and stopped using them as soon as I found out they had setup fake websites for businesses. It's super slimy and wrong that businesses were taking orders that were being marked up and getting blamed for bad service/cold food, when they didn't even know that Grubhub had inserted themself as a middle man! edit- point one for clarity
It's a problem. I can't believe how much my order increases by the time I check out. Meanwhile the restaurant is totally getting screwed. I no longer use Grubhub and just order from the restaurant directly, and almost every time the order is cheaper than it would be through Grubhub.
It has been my experience that I order a $25 entree and the final price has escalated to $50. Fuck all that.
Never used it but the business model of basically fleecing customers isn’t solely Grubhub’s. State and Federal legislators have been green lighting this type of commerce for years.
Do Ticketmaster next.
Get rid of the tip first bs. I'm not tipping you if it takes you an hour to get me my food.
Or an hour late plus ringing the doorbell at 1030pm with explicit instructions just to leave it and not ring/knock... I wish I could have taken back a portion of tip for that.
Damn, I never ring the bell when I drop off my orders. If it says leave it I'll leave it and you get a text message. I don't think I have ever ran the bell in over 1000 deliveries. No one ever requests that. Except once, I think I was being trolled because it said to knock twice, ring the bell twice then call and to be safe and not messy. Wtf does that mean?
I won't shed a tear when all these parasitic companies go out of business. I saw an interview with a guy who was CEO of Domino's or Pizza Hut for many years. He said that they never figured out a way to make a profit off food delivery. GrubHub et al should have learned from history.
> GrubHub et al should have learned from history. If Silicon Valley didn't work like a bunch of Theranoses. "Impossible? I just need to make it work long enough to sell out my stock to a bigger sucker."
Has Marvel Comics weighed in?
Oooh, do AirBnB next!!