This happened to a friend up in Manassas, VA. But, I’m betting this isn’t the ONLY place it’s happening…
Serious warning if you call out for food a lot.
Xxxxx wanted Pizza Hut pizza so I googled the number. I called. First question she asked was our number, which Pizza Hut usually does. But then she asked name and address. I asked if our order history showed. She said it didn’t. I figured computer error, so I gave it to her. I placed the order, a cheese pizza for Jaime. She asked pickup or delivery. Delivery. She gave the order amount as $19, and asked cash or credit.. I said I’d pay the driver cash. She said it would be 20 minutes and with tax and delivery fees it would be $26.
Whoa. Backup. What delivery fees? I thought delivery was free. Nope. $5 delivery fee. Then she asked which Pizza Hut was nearest me. I said “your is”. “What address or plaza ?”, she asked. Aren’t you at the store I called? No. Do you work for Pizza Hut? Too long of a hesitation before she answered yes.
I changed my mind. I’ll pick it up since the store is only a few blocks away. She gave the price as $13 dollars. I didn’t ask about the 6 dollar difference between pickup and delivery prices, before the $5 delivery charge and double Virginia sales tax was added. When I picked the pizza up I grabbed a delivery menu so wouldn’t have to rely on google again.
I’m assuming the numbers google links to is some food delivery service, like grubhub or doordash, rather than Pizza Hut. With all the add on fees they doubled the price of the order. They call in your order, pick it up, and then pocket the difference.
So be careful.
Just checked locally, and the SAME thing here, at least for one Pizza Hut location…
One wonders… Accidental or on purpose? I know what MY guess is…
My Domino’s does not do that.
Got a free pizza last night on points, also.
No delivery where I live anyhow.
@Ed – It’s not that PizzaHut has partnered with GrubHub, for they haven’t. It’s that GrubHub is hijacking the website in the Google listings with their own phone number, taking the phone order, and then calling the real PizzaHut for pickup which it then delivers using its’ own drivers for a $5 delivery fee.
But it is not just PizzaHut that GrubHub & DoorDash are doing this to.
According to a report by the Counter, Grubhub has registered more than 23,000 web domains for real restaurants, creating “shadow pages” that often compete with restaurants’ real websites. If its shadow pages show up higher on Google search results than a restaurant’s own site — or are added by Google’s listings themselves — it’s an advantage for Grubhub, since the delivery service charges higher fees to restaurants when it can claim it helped customers discover them.
Link
The problem is people use Google for the phone number instead of the phone book, and depending on the restaurant which they hijack, the phone that gets delivered can arrive cold & overpriced. The customer then finds fault with the restaurant, when it wasn’t the restaurants’ fault.
Got it.
That’s a good cautionary note. Who uses a paper phone book anymore? There is a lot of reliance on Google, an untrustworthy company in the first place.
I don’t use Google directly to get phone numbers, I use one of the mapping services, sometimes Google Maps and click on the place I want to call and that is almost always their number. What is showing in that screenshot is a google maps page inside a DoorDash ad, so yes you called DoorDash, not Pizza Hut. An article about how a NY pizza place got some revenge. https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage
Great article.
Yes it was.
The delivery services have hijacked the order process and now control and own the data. The store (particularly the small operations) are vulnerable because the “delivery” service can divert, cancel or delay orders when the store does not comply with the delivery service demands.
Side comment: there is a service called Menufy that doesn’t hijack the customers data. It’s not a huge operation, but it’s more honest about its charges.
One of many reasons I order pizza directly from my favorite Mom and Pop pizzeria. I have used Doordash and Grubhub for delivery OTP (other than pizza), but I’m aware of the delivery fees when I do. Whenever possible I work with the restaurant directly.
They’re doing it to some of the mom and pop stores, too. Check out the shop’s website rather than the Google entry to be safe.
Hey Old NFO;
I used to be a Domino’s Pizza Manager in the early 90’s and I still have friends in the industry and this is a common complaint. Domino’s corporate as is Pizza hut and Papa Johns corporate pushback against the grubhub and doordash for doing this, but the franchise stores get victimized by this because they don’t have the horsepower of the corporate stores unless the franchise owner is very vigilant and not all of them are. It causes a lot of anger because the store gets blamed because of the 3rd party delivery system. This isn’t going to go away anytime soon, until the customer gets very vigilant and knows that they are calling the right store. Doordash and others serve a purpose, but they need to focus on restaurants that don’t have their own dedicated drivers. the delivery pizza drivers are concerned that the corporate stores will use doordash and others to undercut them and squeeze them out of a job. The profit margins in delivery pizza’s are small and the stores are looking for any ways to increase their spread.
All- Good points, thanks. I did get an email that some of the delivery services are also doing this on Yelp too.
Posted from my iPhone.
This is Information Warfare in the marketplace. The restaurants need to combat this with getting engaged with their customers, text, email, magnets, radio etc to get their direct phone number and links established with the customer. Directly stating that calling XXXYYYY gets grubhub, not Dan’s Pizza has to be part of the strategy.
A good indicator is background noise. If you don’t hear a busy kitchen, then it isn’t a real business.
Got so bad here between the delivery service overcharging and taking their sweet time to deliver, that I just started doing pickup.
Then my wife and I just started figuring out how to cook better than the restaurants. Which is good for us especially since she has Celiacs and anything with gluten in it just thrashes her system.
I much prefer picking up as I can check the order at the source and get it fixed right then, rather than having to go through the whole reorder-wait-deliver process.
Then again, I like not using my cell phone for everything. I am a self-professed semi-Luddite.
We have an area chain called Casano’s. Decent pizza. They have a 800 number for all of their stores. The order is sent directly to the correct store and we’ve always gotten hot pizza.
I think Lasrosa’s, another area chain, does the same thing.
Yes, LaRosa’s does the same. One phone number for all your ordering.
My food plan doesn’t include pizza and I’m cheap but I appreciate the info and will let the other residents in the building know.
Hypothetically, a sneaky person could probably set up an auto dialer to call these Grub Hub numbers and keep their phone lines tied up.
> I’m assuming the numbers google links to is some food delivery service, like grubhub or doordash, rather than Pizza Hut.
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Yep. I read a lengthy article on the problem a few months ago; restaurant owners are *angry*, but apparently their local prosecutors aren’t interested, nor is Google.
Another problem that I had considered was that these third-party delivery services have tons of complaints from people who noticed part of their order had been eaten before delivery. Hopefully that’s all they were doing to it.
Hrmm… I wonder if a pattern-facial recognition system or such could be used to indicate: “This jerk gets NOTHING. Let the bastard explain to the customer he screwed over why.”
All- Thanks for the comments. TRX, I hadn’t heard about THAT!!! Wow…
Definitely not accidental. The food delivery services are pushing every way they can. Grubhub shows up as the first result for several of my favorite local restaurants, and they look so similar I need to be careful.
Gary- That’s why I go to the actual restaurant’s site.
My fix for this is to pick up a takeout menu, whenever visiting a new restaurant. If I like the food, I program their number into my cell phone with type of food and town they’re located in – either close to home or close to the office, usually. That ensures that when I need to call for pickup or delivery, I’m speaking to the actual restaurant’s employees – not some hack, trying to sponge off their dedication to making good food and providing good service…
Another good check is to go to the restaurant’s website directly and check for phone number/location there.
I saw this playing out as soon as I saw ‘called the number on Google’. I’m a bit surprised there hasn’t been civil actions taken against Doordash, etc by the restaurants.
It isn’t just delivery services and restaurants, ticket brokers play the same game.
The wife-unit wanted to see Wicked so I googled up the theater, found really good tickets and was starting to check out. The price was double what I expected! I rechecked the URL and realized I was on a broker site and dropped the session. Went directly to the theater URL and bought the same seats(!) directly from the house at listed price.
Nik- Yep, I have a number of those on my fridge…
Toast- I think there has been at the ‘corporate’ level.
Rick- Yeah, it does cross boundaries.