Tag Archives: Grubhub

Who could have ordered $1,000 worth of Grubhub orders? Six-year-old Mason.

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It didn’t take long for Keith Stonehouse to put two and two together.

The flurry of takeout orders delivered to his doorway Saturday night could only have been placed by one person: His 6-year-old son, Mason.

He had not ordered anything from Grubhub, the food delivery app that now kept bombarding him with text messages reading, “Your order is being prepared” and “Your order has been delivered.”

Without the Chesterfield, Mich., father noticing, the boy had placed about $1,000 worth of Grubhub orders from several local restaurants when he let him use his phone to play a game before bedtime.

“Why did you do this?” Stonehouse, who was the only parent at home at the time, asked his son, who hid under his comforter.

“I don’t know,” Mason replied. “I was hungry.”

All Mason wanted to know when his father was in the middle of reprimanding him was whether the pepperoni pizzas had arrived yet. (The pizzas did not make it. Stonehouse’s bank declined the $439 order and deemed it fraudulent, the 43-year-old father told The Washington Post.)

“I had to keep stepping out of [his] room and calming myself down,” Stonehouse said. “You want to yell at your son, but he’s only 6.”

A mom panicked when her 4-year-old bought $2,600 in SpongeBob Popsicles. Good Samaritans are paying.

Stonehouse and his wife waited until the next morning to have the “real talk” with Mason, Stonehouse said. Both explained that he had essentially stolen from his father and that he’d have to pay for some of the hot dogs, chili cheese fries, jumbo shrimps and ice cream with the $150 he had in his piggy bank, Stonehouse told The Post.

“We showed him one-by-one,” Stonehouse said. “He was a little devastated but he understood.”

The food, fortunately, didn’t go to waste, Stonehouse said. The family invited other relatives to dinner. A neighbor offered to buy all the jumbo shrimp orders. And they are still eating leftovers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, Stonehouse said.

Mason, though, has not been allowed to eat any of it. “We didn’t want to glorify this to him,” Stonehouse said. “This is not a funny thing.”

Maybe not for at least a decade. The family has joked about buying the exact order for Mason’s graduation party or wedding after-party, Stonehouse said.

For now, the child is still grappling with the consequences of his actions.

“Do I have to start [my piggy bank] all over again?” Mason recently asked his father.

“Yes, Mason,” Stonehouse answered. “Sometimes in life when you make a mistake you have to start all over.”

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Walmart Reaches Video-Streaming Deal to Offer Paramount+ to Members

Walmart Inc.

WMT 0.29%

said it has agreed to a deal with

Paramount Global

PARA 1.41%

to offer the entertainment company’s Paramount+ streaming service to subscribers of Walmart’s membership program.

Walmart has been exploring a subscription video-streaming deal to draw more people to Walmart+ as it seeks to challenge

Amazon.com Inc.,

which has grown its own Prime membership program to about 200 million global members.

The companies agreed to a 12-month exclusivity agreement and a two-year deal that would give Walmart+ members access to Paramount’s ad-supported streaming service, according to people familiar with the deal. The perk will be available starting in September, Walmart said.

Walmart’s announcement on Monday came after The Wall Street Journal reported the two companies had reached an agreement. Walmart is scheduled to announce quarterly earnings on Tuesday.

The deal is the latest tie-up in the fast-changing streaming industry, where a growing group of companies are looking to bundle content to draw viewers or customers. YouTube is planning to launch an online store for streaming video services and has renewed talks with entertainment companies about participating in the platform. YouTube, which is owned by

Alphabet Inc.,

would join

Apple Inc.,

Roku Inc.

and Amazon, which all have hubs to sell streaming video services.

Walmart executives have held talks in recent weeks to discuss a streaming deal with executives at

Walt Disney Co.

,

Comcast Corp.

and Paramount Global, according to people familiar with the matter.

While this partnership is new, Paramount and Walmart have worked together for years. Paramount has had an office in Bentonville, Ark., dedicated to Walmart, which historically has been a big seller of its consumer products and home entertainment.

Paramount Global runs the Paramount+ service, which has shows such as “Halo,” the “Star Trek” series and “Paw Patrol.” The company said this month that Paramount+ had more than 43 million subscribers at the end of its latest quarter.

Walmart introduced Walmart+ in 2020 and aims to use the service to add new streams of revenue beyond selling goods, as well rival the success Amazon has had with its Prime membership services. A subscription to Walmart+ costs $12.95 a month or $98 a year and includes free shipping on online orders and discounts on gasoline. The retailer has added perks to build interest, such as six months of the

Spotify

music-streaming service.

Walmart said Monday that Walmart+ has had positive membership growth every month since its launch, without specifying membership numbers. A Morgan Stanley survey in May said the service has about 16 million members, compared with about 15 million the previous November.

Amazon has invested heavily to ramp up its own Prime Video service, adding original programming and live sports. Prime Video is included along with free shipping and other perks in its Prime membership, which costs $14.99 a month or $139 a year in the U.S. Amazon also recently added a year of Grubhub’s restaurant delivery services for Prime subscribers.

The deal would give Paramount+ a new avenue for growth in an increasingly competitive streaming market now that all of the major entertainment companies have streaming offerings and growth in the U.S. among many services, such as

Netflix Inc.,

has started to slow.

Write to Sarah Nassauer at sarah.nassauer@wsj.com

The line between Amazon and Walmart is becoming increasingly blurred, as the two companies seek to maintain their slice of the estimated $5 trillion retail market while chipping away at the other’s share, often by borrowing the other’s ideas. Photos: Amazon/Walmart

Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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Amazon Prime subscribers now get Grubhub Plus free for a year

Amazon Prime subscribers in the US are getting a new benefit as part of their subscription, the company has announced. Today, they’ll be able to redeem a free year of Grubhub Plus, the monthly subscription service that offers free food delivery on orders over $12 from participating restaurants. Grubhub Plus normally costs $9.99 a month.

According to Amazon, free deliveries associated with Grubhub Plus are available from hundreds of thousands of restaurants across over 4,000 cities in the US. After the year is up, Grubhub will automatically start charging $9.99 a month for continued access. Existing Grubhub Plus subscribers can still make use of the promotion, which will be applied at the start of their next billing cycle. Canceling Prime automatically cancels Grubhub Plus.

The deal comes just a few short years after Amazon shut down Amazon Restaurants, its own attempt to compete in the takeout delivery market. The service was live between 2015 and 2019 but faced stiff competition from the likes of Uber Eats and DoorDash.

Since then, the e-commerce giant has mainly focused on grocery deliveries but has kept a toe in the takeout delivery market through partnerships with other firms. It announced an investment in Europe-focused Deliveroo in 2019 and started offering access to its Deliveroo Plus subscription service as an additional perk for Prime members in the UK last year. As part of the deal announced today Amazon has warrants that it could exercise in the future to take a two percent stake in Grubhub, a stake that could increase to 15 percent over time.

“Amazon has redefined convenience with Prime and we’re confident this offering will expose many new diners to the value of Grubhub Plus while driving more business to our restaurant partners and drivers,” Grubhub CEO Adam DeWitt said in a statement. The company, which is owned by Just Eat Takeaway.com, says it expects Grubhub Plus subscriptions to rise as a result of the deal.

GrubHub Plus isn’t the only additional benefit Amazon is announcing for Prime members today. The e-commerce giant is also making a short teaser trailer for its upcoming TV show, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, available exclusively to Prime subscribers for 48 hours. Members can watch the teaser over on the show’s Amazon page. The trailer ends by promising yet another teaser is coming on July 14th ahead of the release of the series on September 2nd.

Update July 6th, 5:55AM ET: Updated to note Amazon’s two percent stake in Grubhub.

Correction July 7th, 8:07PM ET: The Financial Times previously reported Amazon is taking a two percent stake in Grubhub as a part of this deal. In fact, as this press release states, Amazon will receive warrants exercisable for a two percent stake, as well as additional warrants exercisable over up to 13 percent more.

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Amazon Strikes Deal With Grubhub as Food Delivery Struggles

Financial turmoil in the food-delivery industry is presenting new opportunities for Amazon.

The e-commerce giant struck a deal on Wednesday with Grubhub that allows Amazon Prime subscribers in the United States to forgo delivery fees on orders from certain restaurants, according to a statement by Just Eat Takeaway.com, the Dutch company that owns Grubhub. The agreement also gives Amazon the option to acquire 2 percent of Grubhub, a stake that could eventually grow to 15 percent.

Highlighting the shifting views toward the food-delivery businesses, Just Eat is exploring ways to offload Grubhub roughly two years after paying $7.3 billion to acquire it. The industry’s prospects have been badly bruised as pandemic restrictions have lifted and demand for restaurant delivery has diminished. Labor shortages and increased government regulation have added new costs.

Just Eat, the largest food-delivery platform in Europe, said it would continue exploring a partial or full sale of Grubhub amid pressure from investors to improve its business. Grubhub controls about 13 percent of the U.S. meal delivery market, versus nearly 60 percent for DoorDash and 24 percent for Uber Eats, and Grubhub records lower sales per customer than its main rivals, according to Bloomberg Second Measure. Just Eat’s stock is down more than 60 percent this year, even after a big jump on the Amazon news on Wednesday.

Amazon also owns a stake in Deliveroo, a struggling British food-delivery service whose shares are down about 50 percent this year. Delivery Hero, another European food-delivery firm, has seen its stock price fall more than 60 percent. Shares of Uber and DoorDash are down nearly 50 percent this year.

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DC Attorney General Sues Grubhub for Alleged Misleading Marketing Tactics – NBC4 Washington

Washington, D.C.’s attorney general has filed suit against Grubhub for allegedly “charging hidden fees and using deceptive marking tactics” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lawsuit alleges the food delivery company used deceptive marketing tactics “to increase profits at the expense of consumers and local small businesses,” the Office of the Attorney General announced in a news release on Monday.

“Grubhub misled District residents and took advantage of local restaurants to boost its own profits, even as District consumers and small businesses struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Attorney General Karl Racine said in the release.

“Grubhub charged hidden fees and used bait-and-switch advertising tactics—which are illegal. On top of that, the company deceived users with a promotion that claimed to support local restaurants during the heart of the pandemic. But in reality, this program cut into struggling restaurants’ profit margins while padding Grubhub’s bottom line,” Racine said.

Racine claims Grubhub violated the District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act and harmed D.C. consumers by allegedly failing to disclose that prices are higher in the app than at restaurants, listing restaurants that did not sign up for the platform, creating fake websites the funneled users to Grubhub and other false advertisement tactics.

The lawsuit seeks for Grubhub to “end deceptive marketing practices, be truthful about prices and fees, provide restitution to affected consumers and pay penalties for violating District law.”

In response, a Grubhub spokesperson gave the following statement:

“We work hard to support DC restaurants and diners, and we continually review and enhance our operations to better serve them and meet their expectations. During the past year, we’ve sought to engage in a constructive dialogue with the DC Attorney General’s office to help them understand our business and to see if there were any areas for improvement. We are disappointed they have moved forward with this lawsuit because our practices have always complied with DC law, and in any event, many of the practices at issue have been discontinued. We will aggressively defend our business in court and look forward to continuing to serve DC restaurants and diners.”

Grubhub operates in more than 4,000 cities the United States. Consumers can order food through the website or app which then connects them with a “gig economy” worker that delivers the food to the consumer.

Food delivery companies like Grubhub make money by charging consumers fees and charging fees and commissions to restaurants. Racine’s office said Grubhub made about $1.8 million in revenue in 2020.

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Chicago sues DoorDash and Grubhub for ‘unfair and deceptive’ practices

The city of Chicago has sued food delivery services DoorDash and Grubhub for allegedly using deceptive and unfair tactics that hurt restaurants during the coronavirus pandemic. The two lawsuits accuse the services of a panoply of misconduct, including falsely advertising delivery services for restaurants without their consent, charging misleading fees to customers, and hiding the costs that they added to a meal.

“It is deeply concerning and unfortunate that these companies broke the law during these incredibly difficult times, using unfair and deceptive tactics to take advantage of restaurants and consumers who were struggling to stay afloat,” said Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who filed the complaints alongside Acting Business Affairs and Consumer Protection (BACP) Commissioner Kenneth Meyer, and corporation counsel Celia Meza.

The suits apparently stem from a collaboration between the BACP and the City of Chicago Law Department, and they assert claims based on the Chicago Municipal Code. But they echo incidents cited in other lawsuits and public controversies. Grubhub’s lawsuit, for instance, claims the company’s harshly criticized “Supper for Support” discount “was so deceptive that it was forced to issue corrective statements nationally.” Among many other issues, it also singles out Grubhub’s practice of publicizing phone numbers that direct callers to restaurants but quietly add their own fees, as well as making “imposter” versions of restaurant websites.

Grubhub denied the accusations. “We are deeply disappointed by Mayor Lightfoot’s decision to file this baseless lawsuit. Every single allegation is categorically wrong and we will aggressively defend our business practices. We look forward to responding in court and are confident we will prevail,” a spokesperson told The Verge. Grubhub says it discontinued phone orders on August 23rd, although users can still place a Grubhub order through a representative over the phone, and it no longer makes the websites in question.

This is the second recent government lawsuit against Grubhub. In July, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey sued it for allegedly exceeding a local 15 percent cap on fees to restaurants — a charge that is also present in the Chicago complaint.

DoorDash is similarly accused of getting around Chicago’s 15 percent cap with a $1.50 “Chicago Fee” that “misleadingly conveyed to consumers that the city was imposing this fee and receiving the money.”

DoorDash’s lawsuit also includes a shot against the company’s tipping policy — which solicited “tips” to pay drivers’ existing wages rather than actually passing them on as a bonus. (DoorDash announced that it would change the policy in 2019.) “DoorDash misled consumers in Chicago to believe that they were using the ‘tip’ feature on the DoorDash Platform to supplement the income of the driver who delivered their food, over and above the base pay DoorDash provided. Instead, DoorDash largely used the consumer’s ‘tip’ to subsidize its own agreed payment to the driver,” the suit says.

DoorDash also denied the suit’s merits. “This lawsuit is baseless. It is a waste of taxpayer resources, and Chicagoans should be outraged. DoorDash has stood with the City of Chicago throughout the pandemic, waiving fees for restaurants, providing $500,000 in direct grants, creating strong earning opportunities, and delivering food and other necessities to communities in need,” said a spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. Last year it settled a Washington, DC lawsuit over its tipping policy for $2.5 million; the settlement did not include an admission of wrongdoing.

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