Seamless, Grubhub Deliver Confusion With Mistaken Restaurant Listings (sfchronicle.com) 179
An anonymous reader shares a report: Pim Techamuanvivit was managing her Michelin-starred Thai restaurant in San Francisco, Kin Khao, around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday when she got an unexpected call. A customer was wondering when food from his order on the online food delivery company Seamless was coming, as he had been waiting 45 minutes. "I think you must be confused, because I don't do delivery," Techamuanvivit told him. Techamuanvivit said the man then asked, "So what are you doing on Seamless?" The restaurateur soon discovered that her restaurant had a page on both Seamless and Grubhub. Both brands are owned by Grubhub, a Chicago online food delivery company that merged with New York's Seamless in 2013. The delivery sites listed her restaurant and its address with a menu that she does not serve, including pad Thai and, of all things in a restaurant that specializes in lesser-known Thai regional cuisine, Vietnamese pho.
"It's outrageous. They can't get away with this. They can't totally fake a restaurant that doesn't do delivery and go pick up food from, I don't know, some rat-infested warehouse somewhere and deliver to my guests," said Techamuanvivit, who added that she intends to sue Seamless. Grubhub said that the company partners with more than 140,000 restaurants in over 2,700 U.S. cities, and that most orders are from restaurants with which it has an explicit partnership. The company recently started adding other restaurants to its sites without such a partnership, when it finds restaurants that are in high demand, it said. In those cases, someone from the company orders the food ahead or at the restaurant, and a driver is sent to pick it up, it added.
"It's outrageous. They can't get away with this. They can't totally fake a restaurant that doesn't do delivery and go pick up food from, I don't know, some rat-infested warehouse somewhere and deliver to my guests," said Techamuanvivit, who added that she intends to sue Seamless. Grubhub said that the company partners with more than 140,000 restaurants in over 2,700 U.S. cities, and that most orders are from restaurants with which it has an explicit partnership. The company recently started adding other restaurants to its sites without such a partnership, when it finds restaurants that are in high demand, it said. In those cases, someone from the company orders the food ahead or at the restaurant, and a driver is sent to pick it up, it added.
Delivery sites have been a disaster (Score:5, Informative)
The company recently started adding other restaurants to its sites without such a partnership, when it finds restaurants that are in high demand, it said. In those cases, someone from the company orders the food ahead or at the restaurant, and a driver is sent to pick it up, it added.
If the restaurant is not setup for delivery, this sort of stunt is problematic. Delivery requires a proper setup with hot and cold bags kept separate and delivery drivers timed to grab the order right when it's ready.
UberEats is even worse for food quality, they have somehow convinced a bunch of restaurants that they can delivery and some of them don't even have easy access for the delivery drivers to park, to top it off there is no scheduling so the food can be sitting for 15 - 20 minutes before the delivery driver even manages to show up. A situation made worse by the delivery drivers being afraid to take UberEats orders because it nets them bad reviews.
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If the restaurant is not setup for delivery, this sort of stunt is problematic.
It gets worse and worse; the individual employees and contractors for Seamless and Grubhub might have serious felony criminal liability here. They have to know what is going on, so that they can go to the "wrong" place to pick up the food and deliver it.
This has been a problem here for a while now (Score:4, Informative)
Call it what it is. (Score:2)
Grubhub also (Score:2)
Will say a restaurant is closed if there isn’t a delivery driver available.
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Strangely enough, that's an improvement on SkipTheDishes and UberEATS who will just place the order and have the driver deliver it up to an hour later when one becomes available. Nothing like eating lukewarm food that's been sitting out for 45 minutes waiting for someone to pick it up.
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It hurts local businesses and its also an outright lie.
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Will say a restaurant is closed if there isn’t a delivery driver available.
I've had the opposite happen: Grubhub showed a restaurant open when they were closed for the day (Chinese restaurants close on holidays?) Sat there for a good hour waiting, then had to call grubhub, get that order canceled, then wait for a new order from a different restaurant get delivered. Even worse, my wife was pregnant.
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Why in hell would you place a second order with them? They lied to you up front. Order a pizza. You know they make them themselves and you know they deliver in thermal bags.
Pregnant wife wanted Chinese. We only order from 2 places, both of which I have picked up from in person before, so we know what we're getting.
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Even worse, my wife was pregnant.
That is actually not so bad. Boy or Girl?
Not to quibble, but... (Score:3)
"They can't totally fake a restaurant that doesn't do delivery and go pick up food from, I don't know, some rat-infested warehouse somewhere and deliver to my guests,"
Not to quibble, but it appears they can. Whether or not it's legal is another matter.
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Words have multiple definitions [merriam-webster.com].
I know, "quibble" can be a verb or a noun. Crazy, isn't it?
But the word I really hate is "sanctions". It has two different meanings that are complete opposites. That word should be taken out and shot.
WOW, just WOW!!! (Score:2)
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i was always a bit skeptical about just eating in restaurants (especially fast food)
Which is it: restaurant or fast food? It can't be both. No, I don't care what Ronald McDonald told you when you were five - he lied.
On the plus side... (Score:2)
You get a real Thai experience. I've been to nearly 60 countries, but Thailand surely takes the crown for scams. Nowhere else have I seen scamming elevated to industrial levels the way they do it.
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India: Hold my beer.
Seriously though, the scamming in Thailand is really restricted to the "tourist" areas and goods in the department stores. Lots of knock-off Lego and Barbie products. The quality of kids toys there is terrible and for some reason, books and kid reading material are either ridiculously expensive or non-existent. If you want to avoid Thai scams, get to know the citizens where you are. They hate the scammers even more than you probably do and will steer you clear of them.
Not GrubHub but (Score:2)
their fault (Score:2)
“Out of the 140,000 restaurants we partner with, diners increasingly want delivery. If a restaurant doesn’t want those orders, we’re happy to remove them,” the spokesperson told SFGATE over the phone. SFgate source [sfgate.com]
If that doesn't come off as assholish, I don't know what is.
Re:their fault (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't believe people still use these services (Score:2)
I tried Grubhub years ago. I quickly got the impression that the whole operation was shady. Same with several competitors.
The only one that I trust currently is Uber Eats, and that's probably just because I haven't used them enough. At least I can see the driver went to the restaurant I ordered from.
Re:Seems ok (Score:5, Insightful)
A Michelin starred restaurant is usually a fancy sit-down restaurant, and many of the do not do delivery, period.
You have to make a reservation, go to the restaurant, and order your food from the menu like everybody else. At best you can take home a doggy bag when you're done with your meal.
In this case it's pretty obvious that someone at Grubhub decided to create a fake page for a popular restaturant, and put up a fake menu because they probably get paid by how many order's the page the added generates.
It's clearly a failure of the grubhub model of food delivery.
Re:Seems ok (Score:5, Interesting)
You had me at 'fake menu'.
- So how do customers order what is actually ON the menu at the REAL restaurant? As in, Grubhub is selling customers items that are NOT from this restaurant? That seems sketchy at best, and fraudulent in the end.
- And since they are showing customers a fake menu, haven't they committed a fraud? No revenue for this restaurant, since the customer orders from a not-menu and cannot actually order from the real menu... Is this repetitious?
- Now, if Grubhub decides to publish the ream menu, does the real restaurant have a case for unauthorized use? I would think so. Takedown. Sanctions.
Wow, now I have more reasons to hate Grubhub.
Re:Seems ok (Score:5, Insightful)
It's probably just someone delivering microwave meals to people thinking they are ordering from a good restaurant.
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More likely another less popular restaurant that makes a similar style of food. They likely have listing for a bunch of other restaurants in that area.
Re:Seems ok (Score:5, Informative)
Even in the summary they imply that the food is not even from the restaurant it's claimed to be... in other words a fake kitchen as well as a fake menu.
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As far as the article and any other evidence are concerned there's no indication that is actually happening. ...
The article is pretty clear that it is happening.
They deliver meals she has not on her menu
Seriously... (Score:2)
...it's time to just start dragging scammers into the street and shooting them in the head.
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...it's time to just start dragging scammers into the street and shooting them in the head.
That is not how it works.
You shoot them in both legs.
Re:Seems ok (Score:4, Insightful)
> so I'm not really sure anything is wrong here.
When a customer orders the Phad Thai that is not from the Michelin-starred restaurant because they don't actually make Phad Thai, feels that it's quality is not up to their expectations for a Michelin-starred restaurant, and starts blasting their name around the web and suggesting that their Michelin star should be reconsidered, then you might understand how something could be wrong here.
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It seems like maybe they didn't run their scam past legal, because the liability here is going to be huuuuuuuuuuuge compared to faking listing for regular restaurants not in high demand. So deeply stupid.
For what it's worth, this is what I (and most people) pictured when these services first came out a couple decades ago. Something changed in people's ability to make purchase choices around the time they turned into app zombies.
Re:Seems ok (Score:5, Interesting)
I've told this story here before, but I had an experience akin to this with DoorDash last year.
We thought we'd give DoorDash a try after our latest kiddo was born. We were still in the one month of free deliveries trial period when our anniversary rolled around. We knew we wouldn't be getting out, but we saw a fancy restaurant that's a few minutes away listed on DoorDash, and we had had satisfactory experiences with DoorDash up to that point, so we thought we'd try ordering through them.
Long story short:
- DoorDash's menu was years out of date. We eventually discovered that literally every item we ordered was no longer available from the restaurant.
- DoorDash's phone rep was incompetent. They didn't realize it was all unavailable, so they only had us swap my half ofthe order.
- DoorDash's phone rep was a liar. He claimed the restaurant's chef recommended certain replacements (the most expensive items). Not true, we later found out.
- DoorDash's delivery window was pure fiction. 45 minutes later when we were supposed to receive our food, we instead received a flurry of texts from the driver who was at the restaurant, asking that we swap my wife's half of the order as well. Clearly, we wouldn't be receiving our food at the specified time.
- DoorDash's driver was unprofessional and a liar. After 15 minutes of getting nowhere via text (he ignored my repeated explanation that my wife was lactose intolerant and couldn't eat the cream-laden dishes he kept suggesting), I eventually asked to cancel the order. He said he'd swap her food for yet another cream-based dish and claimed that we couldn't cancel because my half was already cooking (lies, we later found out). When we insisted on canceling the order and asked that he ensure no more food be cooked, he ghosted us, leaving us thinking he had—over my protestations—pushed forward with the latest "alternative" he had attempted to foist on my wife.
We spent a combined hour on the phone trying to sort out the mess with the restaurant and arrange a refund from DoorDash. As it turned out, the restaurant had no idea any of this was happening. Their chef had never been contacted about a replacement, they had never received our order (let alone started cooking any of it), and they were furious to learn that DoorDash was damaging their good name by giving their customers a bad experience without them having any awareness of it. The only thing they knew was that a guy who was clearly dressed inappropriately for the venue had been texting furiously from the bar where to-go orders are placed/picked up, was generally being disruptive, and then stormed out suddenly without placing an order. They had no clue he worked for DoorDash. For our part, we eventually got everything sorted out and received a full refund, but we cancelled our DoorDash account that same night.
On the plus side, we discovered that the restaurant offers to-go, which we had previously been unaware of, so we'll likely skip the middleman and take advantage of that in the future if we want to get something from there without having to find a babysitter.
Re:Seems ok (Score:4, Informative)
Ate there a few weeks ago. Nice restaurant, small, not that fancy, not that expensive. Definitely not your average Michelin star restaurant. Having said that, I don't remember there being any carryout business while I was there, and Yelp indicates no carryout. So...something fishy is going on here.
Re:Seems ok (Score:5, Insightful)
Even then it's still fraud to misrepresent something on the site as official. It should clearly say that it's an unofficial listing and they will send someone to collect, and that the menu is probably wrong anyway.
There may also be trademark issues and simple reputation damage due to their lack of care when creating the listing.
Re: Seems ok (Score:3)
Re: Seems ok (Score:4, Funny)
Unless they're dumpster diving . . .
Re:Seems ok (Score:5, Informative)
I would think that if the restaurant has a takeaway service, then it should be legal for anyone to pick up the food, pay for it, and deliver to a third party.
According to the readable portion of the pay-walled SF Chronicle story linked in the summary, the restaurant in question does not even offer takeout. So Seamless(never heard of them)/Grubhub are creating a fake listing, with a fake menu, for a restaurant that does not even offer delivery/takeout. Sounds like a pretty good case for fraud and brand dilution. Seamless has taken down the listing, but tweets from the restaurant owner show no reviews so hard to tell how long the listing was up.
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It isn't actually paywalled, it is pay-nagged.
Install an uBlock Origin. Block the overlay. Read the article. Learn to internet.
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Install an uBlock Origin. Block the overlay. Read the article. Learn to internet.
I use ublock at home. At work it's a different story.
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You'd think your employer would care a lot about protecting your work computer from malicious ads. Ask them about it.
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Yes, sure, wanting to protect company computers from potential ads that might harm them is stupid. What is wrong with you?
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It's the network effect model. Be the one-stop marketplace so lazy people only install your app. As such, you're willing to take a loss on a few "loss leaders" for prestige (and completeness) for the privilege of saying you have better coverage than your competitor, since people will tend to order different things and you can average out the loss. Kind of like how Disney launched Disney+ with a bigger catalog to convince people to join, and then started dropping things after the launch date. Of course,
Re:Seems ok (Score:5, Insightful)
No. As long as a business isn't discriminating based on a protect class, it's perfectly within the rights of any restaurant to refuse these services (or delivery, altogether). As a small business owner, I would NOT deal with these services.
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You've clearly never heard stories of delivery guys opening up containers to have a small bite when they're hungry. It happens. Nobody faults a company for controlling the vertical of their supply chain, and nobody faults them for controlling their delivery chain. Except when it comes to food apparently, then it's the wild west.
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All my orders have come in stapled shut or tamper resistant bags. This has not been an issue for me. That's been my experience in 3 major locations. If it doesn't come that way, why would you accept it?
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You can see when the food is ready, when it is picked up, and then how long (and how many detours) the driver takes. Why would you assume the food is cold because of the restaurant? Honestly, the apps give you the information to tell the difference.
Re: Seems ok (Score:2)
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In a decent sit-down restaurant, the food is carefully presented and given to the customer as fresh as possible. If it's thrown in a cardboard box and driven 45 minutes across town, it's not going to be something you can be proud of. The online reviews will talk about unappetizing, cold, soggy food items. Why would anyone want that?
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45 minutes away shouldn't be coming up in your available searches. Mine doesn't list places over 25 min away. I'm getting the idea that your experiences in the states are much worse than they are in Canada.
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1. Yes, fix the fraud problem with regulation and licensing of the delivery businesses.
2. Never deny people the right to have food delivered for them. Stop assuming everyone is capable of going to the restaurant themselves, as some cannot.
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Re:Seems ok (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that the food the people are getting delivered are not from the restaurant it claims to be. This is basically trademark abuse. I can't set up a restaurant and call it McDonald's. (Though I can could a McDowells.)
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Except that the food the people are getting delivered are not from the restaurant it claims to be. This is basically trademark abuse. I can't set up a restaurant and call it McDonald's. (Though I can could a McDowells.)
It's not trademark abuse, it's outright fraud.
This is creating a (or contracting to) to a restaurant called "Shady Back Ally Food" that produces really cheap slop, and then selling to customers as most delicious excellent food from "My Michelin 3 Star Restaurant", and pocketing the difference between the two prices.
Re:Seems ok (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not trademark abuse, it's outright fraud.
Those crimes aren't mutually exclusive. From the sound of it Grubhub has committed both.
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Except that the food the people are getting delivered are not from the restaurant it claims to be. This is basically trademark abuse. I can't set up a restaurant and call it McDonald's. (Though I can could a McDowells.)
I was unable to read the entire article. Is there a registered trademark for the restaurant in question?
Re: Seems ok (Score:2)
The McDowells reference is from the movie "coming to America".
I actually lived in that area when they created the fake restaurant on the site of a real one (I think it was a Wendy's). I didn't realize it was for a movie and thought "There's no way they are getting away with this".
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Except that the food the people are getting delivered are not from the restaurant it claims to be. This is basically trademark abuse. I can't set up a restaurant and call it McDonald's. (Though I can could a McDowells.)
It's even worse when you consider someone getting sick or even dying from food your restaurant did not prepare, but was purported to be as such. By the time you clarified your innocence in a courtroom, your Michelin-star rated restaurant and its reputation would be reduced to nothing. Good luck even finding the "bad guys" or enough money to extract from them to cover the damage caused.
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if your name is McDonald then you might get away with something like McDonald's family restaurant so long as it doesn't look like a McDonald's fast food chain.
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A fellow named Uzi Nissan had a computer repair shop and ISP back when the car company was still called Datsun. Then the car company changed its name, registered the trademark, and sued the guy for cybersquatting. He lost his ISP and web site, had to change his company name, and was out lawyers fees for something that was not his fault at all.
Welcome to big business.
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Except he didn't. Nissan.com goes to Nissan Computer's web site - which is plastered with information about the lawsuit that you have to get past to get to his computer services. NissanUSA.com goes to Nissan Motor's US web site.
And I'd have a LITTLE more sympathy for the guy if he hadn't registered the domain name nissan.com knowing Goddamn well a major car company was using it for the past five years. Why couldn't he just be nissancomputer.com? Every other Nissan related name on the net - and there are
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There used to be a 'polloria' roast chicken place on the main road to the airport in Cusco, Peru named 'McDonalds' with a big picture of Donald Duck on the sign. I notice it's gone now, probably a Disney exec went to Machu Picchu and noticed it.
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I would think that if the restaurant has a takeaway service, then it should be legal for anyone to pick up the food, pay for it, and deliver to a third party. The most I see the courts doing in this case is to make the delivery service notify customers that it is independent and not affiliated with the business.
The complaint will be that they are improperly using the restaurant's brand without permission. The fake and very wrong menu didn't help. I doubt it will be hard to prove harm in this case.
I can see, however, how this model might damage the reputation of the restaurant . On the other hand, I am not sure how a delivery service is going to make a profit if they do not cut a deal with suppliers.
They charge a stupidly high delivery fee to the user.
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Depends on the business model of the restaurant.
Some restaurants may be too small to deal with the influx from grubhub. Some "Hole in the wall" eateries may only be able to support a few hundred orders a day. With their volume from word of mouth advertising. Having GrubHub doubling their orders may make it impossible for them to keep up. As they will have a site with advertising that they cannot support.
Legal Issues. (Score:3)
You order the food from GrubHub and you get food poisoning.
Whos fault is it?
The Delivery driver may not have the correct environment to deliver the food (too cold or too hot). It might have been contaminated from some other foods...
Re:Legal Issues. (Score:5, Insightful)
You order the food from GrubHub and you get food poisoning.
Whos fault is it?
Yours, because disruption!
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Here are some questions for you:
Say you lived in San Francisco and order pad thai and pho from Kin Khao via Seamless. The food arrives and is terrible or you get food poisoning. What do you do? Who do you complain to first? According to the article, Kin Khao doesn't offer either dish but it is on the menu on Seamless. From where did the food come?
Now, say you do the
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Fix the fraud, but don't kill the delivery services... and fix these restaurants that aren't allowing delivery:
* Criminally charge companies faking restaurants with fraud and prosecute.
* Force licensing of delivery services.
* Legally mandate that restaurants cannot deny state licensed delivery services, but allow say a 30 or 40% limit on deliveries vs peak restaurant seating, so they don't get overwhelmed with take out orders. Remember, denying delivery services is exercising prejudice against the disabled
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Businesses are expected to make "reasonable accommoda
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Quit trying to defend discrimination. If a service is available and licensed to provide delivery to the disabled and it is not charging your business for the service, then it is a "reasonable accommodation". I'm quite certain that when restaurants start getting sued left and right for not allowing food to be delivered to the disabled, they'll change their minds, or go down fighting. I look forward to seeing it happen.
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No. Being forced to provide a shitty product that will hurt ones reputation is not a "reasonable accommodation".
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* Legally mandate that restaurants cannot deny state licensed delivery services, but allow say a 30 or 40% limit on deliveries vs peak restaurant seating, so they don't get overwhelmed with take out orders. Remember, denying delivery services is exercising prejudice against the disabled. So 'we don't offer take out' and 'we don't allow delivery' should get them sued out of business. That will fix some of these stingy places not wanting to allow delivery.
That would be absurd, plenty dishes particularly desserts require timing and would be soggy/mushy/melted by the time it arrived and it would be total nonsense to mandate that they ruin their reputation by trying. No high end restaurant would accept that, takeaway food is the subset of food that works reasonably well stuck in a box for half an hour. And even if you somehow could force them to, you really want a bunch of people handling food they won't want to serve you? I wouldn't directly sabotage it but th
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That behavior you just described is easily identifiable with the data these delivery apps collect. It would be shown in court to be illegally discriminating, say for a disabled person, and they'd have you by the balls. People aren't ordering for the 'experience' when they have it delivered. They are ordering for the convenience, for the time savings, and in the case of some of the disabled, just to simply eat. Why do you feel the need to mess with them and their food? What is this mentality of "You did
Re: Seems ok (Score:3, Interesting)
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I'm wondering if some crook pretended to be Kin Khao, made a listing on Seamless/Grubhub/whatever, put up a generic Thai menu and then filled orders from a local cheap-o place?
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This is the most straight-up case of trademark infringement I can think of in recent times.
It's one company representing itself as a different company to the detriment of the actual owner of the trademark.
Seamless should get sued into oblivion over this.
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What does delivery have to do with their reputations? If the food is good, but the delivery is bad, the delivery service gets the bad rep.
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This is absolutely not true: If the delivery driver is rough with the packaging and your sauce packet ruptures, you might blame delivery, but if your delivery driver turns the container over mixing the rice with the general tso's chicken, you're likely to blame a sloppy kitchen. For some people, flavor is important, and that means separating components completely, or at least separating them until just before eating. Would you eat sweet and sour chicken that had been sitting in the sauce for 20 minutes?
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Why would you assume those weren't delivery problems? The kitchen isn't going to make it soggy and crappy on purpose.
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These apps tell you when the food is made, tells you when it is picked up, and when the driver will be delivering the food. If you use Skip The Dishes, and I think Uber Eats, you can see them driving to the food and to you. So you know why it's cold or not. If the food is tumbled about, something spilled, etc... You *KNOW* that was the delivery. The kitchen isn't spilling your stuff before it's picked up, come on. Seriously. The only reason to call the restaurant and complain is if the order was clear
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The problem isn't specific to delivery services. Similar problems happen in just about every customer service industry. If you worked in customer service, as you claim, you shouldn't be surprised by this.
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Worked customer service from age 16 until 21. Dug pools, too. What of it?
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The article says that the online menu listed items that the restaurant didn't serve. I've previously heard of GrubHub "pop-up" restaurants. Where someone gets some kitchen space and churns out meals purely for GrubHub (or related app) delivery. What likely happened was someone saw that this restaurant was popular and decided to take advantage of this success by naming their GrubHub listing the same. If the food was delivered, it wouldn't have come from the real restaurant, but the copy. This could easily le
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It's unclear from the summary whether they really "faked a restaurant" or merely resold the food. Did they pick up the food from the named restaurant, or did they make it themselves? The former would just be an innocent middleman, the latter would be fraud and trademark infringement.
The restaurant in question doesn't do to go orders. If any food was delivered, it was from a different restaurant (and probably heavily marked up).
I'm surprised this hasn't happened before: Find a high-end restaurant without a grubhub/door dash presence, create a fake listing. When orders come in, fill from a cheaper restaurant, keep the difference.
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The *summary* says they don't do "delivery." That leaves a gray area where they might still do take-out. Maybe the article clarifies, but this is Slashdot, right?
Re:Don't be so fast to blame Grubhub (Score:5, Interesting)
The company recently started adding other restaurants to its sites without such a partnership, when it finds restaurants that are in high demand, it said. In those cases, someone from the company orders the food ahead or at the restaurant, and a driver is sent to pick it up, it added.
So yes, it was Grubhub who did it.
Re:Don't be so fast to blame Grubhub (Score:4, Informative)
From TFA:
The company recently started adding other restaurants to its sites without such a partnership, when it finds restaurants that are in high demand, it said. In those cases, someone from the company orders the food ahead or at the restaurant, and a driver is sent to pick it up, it added.
So yes, it was Grubhub who did it.
Right. But the posters above were saying this was a "fake" listing. This may be a completely different but legitimate restaurant with a similar name.
According to the restaurant owner, the listing even showed the address of her restaurant.
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From TFA:
The company recently started adding other restaurants to its sites without such a partnership, when it finds restaurants that are in high demand, it said. In those cases, someone from the company orders the food ahead or at the restaurant, and a driver is sent to pick it up, it added.
So yes, it was Grubhub who did it.
Right. But the posters above were saying this was a "fake" listing. This may be a completely different but legitimate restaurant with a similar name. As the article said, they don't serve the same kind of food. If you want to take advantage of brand confusion and steal their business, then what's the point in serving completely different things than what the ripped off place is known for?
People here are reaching hard for nefarious intent in the face of other more plausible explanations.
I can sort of understand not reading TFA. But the /. summary even said
The delivery sites listed her restaurant and its address with a menu that she does not serve...
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Yes.
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Food delivery works better in larger/denser cities. Little Rock is too small and too spread out. Totally different story in New York.
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Delivery works fine in small towns that are even mostly rural. Example - where I am, the "in town" population is about 1500 folk. For restaurants, we have 2 pizza places, a Subway, a generic Chinese take-out place, a small town diner that is only open from 5am to 2pm, and a second small diner that is only open from 11am to 9pm.
Not sure on the various food vendor app thingies (I don't do apps) but both pizza places do a LOT of delivery service, covering not just our little town but also the rural around ar
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Well, I don't agree that it's not viable, I think a valid question is, viable for whom? I ordered a takeout order from a local restaurant last year. I ordered online simply because it's easier to order online, put in any special requests, etc., than doing so over the phone (particularly when dealing with non-native English speakers). The restaurant owner was telling me that just for placing the order over the website, the company (I think Grubhub) took 30%. Last time I used one of those services.
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When I found that the local Peruvian-style roast chicken place was partnering with a new local delivery service our office ordered a couple of times and it was great. Then the delivery was bought out by GrubHub and the next time took over an hour. We thought maybe it was just bad luck, so we tried again. This time they told us that the place was **out of chicken** during what should have been their lunch rush, which I later was told (by the restaurant) is what they tell customers if they don't have a dri