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Grubhub is doing away with a controversial phone ordering system that had restaurants across the nation paying the app commissions for orders that never took place, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n
Starting Aug. 23, the food delivery and ordering company will be using call centers with actual customer service reps to facilitate orders from Grubhub-owned phone lines to restaurants, according to the Web site.<\/p>\n
Previously, the Chicago company had relied on a computer algorithm to manage the phone lines it had set up to direct telephonic food orders to its restaurant clients.<\/p>\n
But the algorithm, as The Post exclusively reported in 2019, had been unfairly charging restaurant owners between $4 and $9 for calls longer than 45 seconds \u2014 whether or not they resulted in an order.<\/p>\n
Following The Post\u2019s reporting, Grubhub soon faced mounting calls for refunds and pressure from legislators, including Sen. Chuck Schumer D-NY, who told Grubhub \u201cto eat any fees they wrongfully charged restaurants or even customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
New York City Council members were also demanding that Grubhub refund all \u201cerroneous phone order charges\u201d to restaurants and threatened to \u201cexplore legislative solutions if the company fails to act.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year the City Council followed up with a temporary law aimed at Grubhub\u2019s practice for charging restaurants fees for telephone calls that never resulted in an order.<\/p>\n
Grubhub alerted restaurant clients to the new system on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
It said it will now give restaurant customers three choices when they call a Grubhub-generated telephone number assigned to a restaurant, including an option to speak directly with the restaurant for which there is no fee associated with the call.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s the second phone ordering system Grubhub has rolled out in less than two years.<\/p>\n
In January 2020, the food delivery giant came up with a new phone system to address legislators\u2019 concerns, but it still relied heavily on guesswork to determine whether and how much a restaurant should be charged. <\/p>\n
Customers under last year\u2019s system were prompted to press #1 to place an order or #2 for everything else. Grubhub said it would bill only for the \u201c#1\u201d calls that lasted longer than 45 seconds and didn\u2019t charge restaurants if a customer had attempted to place an order when a restaurant was closed.<\/p>\n
It had also agreed to not charge for calls placed by customers who had recently placed a food order with that restaurant. Under the original system, Grubhub had been charging restaurants for calls from customers checking up on or complaining about orders they had already made.<\/p>\n