Restaurant.com Customers Who Allegedly Purchased Restaurant Coupons At Closed Restaurants in Florida File Class Action Lawsuit Complaint Against Restaurant.com.
A class action lawsuit complaint has been filed against Restaurant.com, Inc. (“Restaurant.com” or “Defendant”) in the Circuit Court of the 11th Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County Florida (styled Cristy Cora v. Restaurant.com, Inc., Class Action Case No. 11-08065CA), alleging, among other things, that Restaurant.com sells restaurant coupons to internet customers for certain restaurants that are no longer in business, purportedly in violation of section 501.95, Fla. Stat., the CARD Act and the EFTA, 15 U.S.C. section 1693 et seq., according to the Restaurant.com coupon class action lawsuit complaint.
The Restaurant.com class action lawsuit complaint reportedly is brought on behalf of the following putative class of persons, unless otherwise excluded:
All of Defendant’s Florida customers who bought restaurant coupons at closed restaurants.
For more information on the Restaurant.com restaurant coupon class action lawsuit, read the Restaurant.com coupon class action lawsuit complaint.
If You Have Thoughts On The Restaurant.com Restaurant Coupon Class Action Lawsuit, Share Your Class Action Comments Below.
This is occuring in many, many other states as well. You really need to look into this…. Shady.
Last night I tried to use my restaraunts.com gift certificate and the restaurant did not accept it. I’m wondering how trust-worthy this company is.
We have two restaurants in NYC and after numerous bad experiences with the program, we cancelled our agreement with Restaurant.com. We gave them 90 days notice and have honored certificates thru their expiration date. The company is now telling us we have to honor these discounted certificates for up to 5 years or pay them $17K – These are certificates that they probably sold to consumers for $1 on Ebay – STAY AWAY, DO NOT BUY THESE CERTIFICATES.
I am an attorney in Louisiana and have a restaurant client who is having the same difficulty with Restaurant.com. Would like to contact you.
Please email us : thetruthaboutrestaurantdotcom@gmail.com and we’ll share more info with you that could help springboard this case! Check us out on Facebook too! Thank you!
Hello, I would LOVE to be a part of a class action suit against RDC, they have cost us sooo much in loss of business and are completely fraudulent. My story is the same as many here, except that I never even SPOKE to ANYONE there, they just came in to the resaturant spoke to staff and put the coupons on. the first I heard of it was when someone came in w a coupon for $25- off a $30- tab!!! No one can afford that! I have called them countless times and they won’t stop, I have never even seen any letters or paperwork. Another business the next town over has a big sign outside their restaurant saying whte do not honor RDC coupons, I have a sign like that on my door as well, it’s AWFUL!!
feel free to write to me, they should have to pay us all back for all the loss of business and angry customers they cause, as well as for all of our time trying to get them to stop!! Thankyou if you could help us.
I purchased on 4/27/2015 a $10 certificate for Rasheed’s Cafe, on Hamilton Avenue, Cincinnati. Ohio. On May 2, 2015, I went to Rasheed’s Cafe for dinner and was unable to use my certificate. I was told that the Restuarant didn’t give Restaurant. Com permission to list their restaurant on their website. They also said it was a scam and their logo didn’t appear on the certificate. Therefore they didn’t honor my certificate. Any assistance regarding this matter would be appreciated.
We own a restaurant in Oregon and am having great difficulties with restaurant.com. Non-disclosure, and shady practices from their sales people. My cell is 503-312-2616.
Sincerely,
Edward Lewis
I cannot get RESTARAUNT.COM to stop selling gift certificates for my restaurant. They are operating outside our agreement and refuse to stop. I have rebranded my restuarant and they are selling GC for a menu and concept that doesn’t exist any longer. Please let me know what is going on!!!
I’ve been seeing a lot of restaurants trying to get out of it. They have no respect for any of their customers. How can they keep doing unethical practices like this. Hopefully you guys are doing okay with it.
I feel the same way. They do not care about the merchants whatsoever, and claim to be out there to help restaurant owners. They only care about selling vouchers/certificates to benefit themselves. Someone needs to start up a class action lawsuit against them on behalf of the merchants. They only want to benefit from the merchants without providing any benefit to the merchants, the textbook definition of a parasite. Have they no shame???!!! We have already initiated the 90 day cancellation process and are crossing our fingers.
I have a restaurant in Alabama and my aweful experience with restaurant.com is that they sell their certificate and sold over the limited requirement from the owner. After giving them 90 days notice, restaurant.com continue to sell the certificate and was told honor the certificate. These certificate has no experation date. These certificate is hurting my business and I refuse to continue honoring them due to lost of profit. DO NOT SIGN-UP WITH THEIR PROGRAM. RESTAURANT.COM IS REAPING ALL THE BENEFITS WHILE SMALL BUSINESS ARE HURTING.
I sure would like to know if there is a class action suit in North Carolina. We were just told that we could not use ours after we spent a crap load of money at a restaurant. First off I think it is bad for the restaurant to not honor it, but then for restaurant.com not do the fair thing and give you the discount you should of had.
Blake,
See my commnets below. If the restuarant is refusing the certificate, it is probably becasue restaurant.com has changed the terms of the certificte without restaurant’s knowledge, i.e. expiration date. Please note that the restaurant does not recieve a penny from the sale of the gift certificate and all the money you spend to buy it goes to restaurant.com.
Blake
I cant tell you how many times we honored coupons after following all of the rules from RDC. And it seemed like while we were on our 90 day cancellation they sold more. We knew that we had until Dec. 31 2011 for our 90 days to be up. WHEWW!!! I thought we were done. (mind you I had cancelled with them over a year before through email and they claimed they did not receive it) I had to honor any gift cert. purchased before Dec. 31 2011 but then here come coupons sold after January 01, 2012 That was the last straw, the last customer that came in to redeem a $25.00 certificate was extremely angry with me and and let me know how he felt. With the price of our menu items he would not have even qualified for the voucher. As was with most of our vouchers. We had to honor over 75% of them that didn’t even qualify because the customer didn’t want to purchase the right amount for the coupon to be redeemed. I to put signs up and had to endure the anger of so many customers who personally blamed our restaurant. I could not apoligize enough and it was a constant fight on the phone with RDC. I just opened a statment from them today and they claim we owe them over $6000.00. So to all of the customers who we had to refuse pleas accept my apologies and we don’t like to pass the blame but we trully can’t accept this one.
I own a restaurant in Altanta and joined Restaurant.com about 2 years ago. But a year ago we decided to cancell only to find out that their contract refers us to their web site for the rules of the contract and then they arbitrarily change their terms on their web site and want to hold us to the changed terms. It took us over 3 months to finally get out of their program. When we signed up, the deal was that thier certificates expire one year from date of purchase. But recently we see customets presenting certificates to us that state they never expire. But this was not our deal with them and is another thing they changed without our consent. Of course, refuse certificates that are over one year old but now Restaurant.com keeps calling us threatening us that we have to accept the certificates. I explained to them that they changed the terms of the original contract unilaterlly but they claim that the law in Georgia states that certificates should not expire. I looked up the law and Georgia does not have such a law. This company has very shady practices and I warn all restaurant owners against joining them. Customers get upset when we reject the old certificates and rightly so, but that is Restaurant.com’s fault and they shold be held liable for damages to the reputation of restaurnats like us.
How did you get them to stop selling the gift certificates? For one year I have been calling, writing, emailing and had my attorney send a registered letter, they refuse to stop. They are crooks!!!
They have a 90 day cancellation process in which will continue to sell the vouchers/certificates. They claim that the expiration of the vouchers vary by state-to-state laws. Please find an attorney to initiate a class action lawsuit so that we as restaurant owners can eliminate the worst thing to happen to small restaurants, the parasite called restaurant.com. There is strength in numbers!!
I’m not a restaurant owner, but I do feel bad and would feel stressed if I was an owner. Hopefully these restaurant.com gets sued or goes out of business. I mean I got mad for going into a one of my favorite restaurants and they didn’t take the coupon. I paid for the full price but it gave me a bitter taste towards restaurant.com. Luckily I had a better understanding or I would of hated the restaurant. Im just going to stick with regular coupon sites.
I bought a certificate from restaurant.com and the add read $50 coupon for $20. There was no mention of having to buy $100 worth of food and a 18% gratuity until after I purchased the coupon. On complaining to the company they sent me a website link supposedly showing that it did state this in an attempt to cover up their misleading info. This Mr. Polites and restaurant.com are at the least misleading and should be out of business.
I was one of the top representative w/ RDC for 7 1/2 years. I earned a hefty annual income, but took care of my restaurant owner’s issues here in AZ. I was illegally terminated while I was out on disability, so not only are they treating the Restaurant Owners horribly, they have turned on the core of their business – The people that get them the restaurants that earn them their $$. There are 15 or more people like me around the country that they have terminated while out on Sick or Maternity Leave.
Their “New Regime” at Corporate has done nothing more than harm the RDC reputation that was pristine 5 years ago. I have said in the past 2 years that this new “Corporate Attitude” would be the demise of this once awesome company.
If anyone needs me as a witness – I am available and would love to be subpenaed – 602-621-2146
I am a restaurant owner and am having the same problem, they are now calling me and telling me they are sending me to collections for not honoring their gift certificates, which I cancelled over a year ago. The “woman” on the phone literally called me a terrorist, I would help in anyway to shut this company down.
cjhoyt3000@yahoo.com
I too will help in any way. Please find an attorney that will initiate a class action law suit against them. I am sure there are plenty of us small restaurant owners out there that are more than willing to band together and rid the industry of these parasites at restaurant.com
Sincerely,
Edward Lewis
I have been fighting with Restaurant .com to stop selling coupons. I have had to make several calls to reach the contact individual. I asked why can you not honor the wishes of the owner of a vreastaurant and stop selling vouchers?
We need to recoup our loses from advertising our restaurant.
We are a very small cafe that cannot afford to giveaway 25 or 50 dollars worth of food. The customers never come back without another coupon. I asked so many times in a polite manner and was told thbat we cannot just get out until they decide. In finally said that we will not honor any of their coupons. They warned me about being contacted by another area of the company.
If they are so great and successful, let a vendor leave when they tell you they are getting hurt by the coupons . New version of corporate greed.
Watch out for these people.
I am a victim simillar to those of you. they won’t remove our restaurant out of there site,and telling us even we cancel the agreement we still have to accept those already sold out coupons which is ridiculous. we are small family business we can’t afford 25$ off the food. I am a new English learner and yet I understand English, because of the language barrier makes me even more difficult when I presented my request on the phone. Every time when they can’t answer my question or refused to answer it they will throw out bunch of laws agreements and conditions and some complicated vocabulary go around with me which I told them I don’t understand a word from you. I ask for a chinese representive talk to me they refused. I said” I might not speak English well but don’t think I am stupid.” she said ” no joe you are not stupid, stupid people can’t run a business, I think you are mentally intelligent!” The voice and the accent she put on the each word it really hurts my bottom line. I am not a short temper person and I don’t want to get mad. I simple reply to her “I am wordless with you guys.” I was regretted I didn’t put a recorder to record this conversation. If you live in MN and hurted by this company and want the justice got its word. If you are collecting evidences and stories like I have my email is wwwxiaobai@yahoo.com
cell number917 518 9800
I’m a long term RDC certificate user. Recently, I’m encountering increasing resistance or refusal to accept certificates in the Charlotte area; now I know why. Some restaurants, trying to protect their reputations, accept the certificates at a loss. Others won’t, but offer a % discount instead, for customer satisfaction. Others just won’t accept them at all. I sympathize with the restaurants and will try to support local businesses by refusing to do further business with RDC. Too bad! A great concept that has been ruined by greed, abuse and failure of RDC to have any customer focus. If you work for RDC, start searching for your next job; they won’t last long.
This is such a scam. I hope other businesses have the smarts to use Google before they sign anything. They came to our business promising us free advertising and that they would promote us on the internet. ALL AT NO COST TO US! Now comes the hard part….how do you prove that? We are a small business in Michigan and it is hard enough surviving with todays economy. And now we have to give $50 worth of product for $25. And they make money by doing nothing. I should honestly just tell my customers to come in, and I will give them their food at half price, and for them not to pay RDC.
Do not sign anything with RDC. YOU WILL BE SORRY!!!!
I myself own a small restaurant. They contacted me stating that they are nonprofit organization to assist small business owners. They fool my completely. He had ipad and made me sign a screen showing gift certificate amounts and that I authorize them to advertise on their behalf. I asked him if I can cancel and he said I can cancel it any time. Now, I have realize that they sold over 600 certificates and I can’t seems to cancel. This is really hurting my business and I am not able to pay myself a dime to pay my bills. Is there class action against them by business owners?
same crap…not turning off the spigot of gift certificates…im gonna get a cease and desist letter from the courts
after 3 years and 2 restaurants…really?
fuck you restaurant.com hope you die painfully
Interested in hearing from Restaurant owners that have been unable to cancel there Contract with Restaurant.com. Please-only reply with email and limit your comments to this issue
EMAIL ONLY
Hello, I would love to be a part of a class actions suit against RDC, they are doing so many illegal things, I have never even met a rep from there, nor did I ever speak to anyone or sign anything, and people started bringing the coupons in to my place that I have owned for over 30 years. I, along w other local restaurants in my area have big signs on our doors saying we do not honor the coupons, I would love to be compensated for all my time and for the angry customers which equals loss of business, how can they do this w/o written or at least verbal permission from the owner?? This has to be completely illegal!
I too am interested in signing up for a class action lawsuit against restaurant.com Non-disclosure of terms of the agreement, and doing whatever they want against verbal agreements at the sales meeting. Cell is 503-312-2616.
rberrygrier@gmail.com
same story as everyone else
Email Only please.
THEY ARE SELLING $ 10 AND $ 15 CERTIFICATES WITHOUT MY AUTHORIZATION. I CALLED THEM UP, THEY ARE NOT CANCELLING AND TOLD ME RUDELY ( THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT). THE BUSINESS MANAGERS NAME IS NATALIE AT RESTAURANT.COM. SHE SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HERSELF.I CONTACTED NATIONAL RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION.THEY ARE NOT HELPING.
IF THERE IS A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT I WANT TO BE A PART OF IT. CELL. 631- 831-2834
I am a restaurant owner in Florida and I feel like I am being held hostage by Restaurant.com I have tried on numerous occasions to change the program so it would benefit me with no sucess. They will not even allow me to offer $10 GC during the 90cxl ploicy. I am on the verge of not accepting anymore certifictes and risk being sued. At some point you have to say, what is the worse of the two eveils, me being sued or not making any money and having to close down shop. This has been a nightmare!
Mynta,
They cant and wont sue you and you will need to explain to the customer and just let it be what it is. The coupons will not stop coming in and you need to post a sign on your door explaining it to the customers. Try to post web sites that they can visit but dont be afraid it they could sue us they would have already done it. And I hope they do so that we can fight them back..
I am a restaurant Manager in Florida and I too feel like I am being held hostage by Restaurant.com I have tried on numerous occasions to change the program so it would benefit me with no sucess. They will not even make any changes. I am no longer accepting certificates and telling customers that restaurant.com is a FRAUD !!!!
same as the rest of you. I own a small oyster bar in south Alabama and have been completely screwed by RDC. I will not accept their coupons and to hell with them, they can take my ass to court. I can’t give away food. Why hasn’t someone been able to shut these people down?
Same deal here. We have just stopped honoring them and put a sign on the door. Even so, some customers disregard the sign and pull it out after dinner. We are an upscale bistro and do not need most of the coupon demographic but thought being new it would help increase traffic. We have over 700 out there and RDC has threatened to take legal action. The customers who get upset and report you aren’t the customers we want anyway cause they will only come back if they have a coupon. If we continue to take them we will need to close the doors by April or lose my home, car, ect. So if needed I will develop a specific restaurant.com menu and will be about a 10% food cost. They will have a choice of an app and an entree from the pre fixe menu. We will still make a profit but a small one but in most cases I think they will opt to not use it and they won’t use one again. RDC is a SCAM and action needs to be taken against them. Me and my wife have saved for 10 years to open our place and we are profitable after 3 months but with RDC we are in the red and stand to lose everything. Stay Away from them.
Hello, I own a restaurant in New Hampshire and do NOT honor the coupons from restaurant.com, they are very dishonest and extrememly underhanded. They put coupon’s on their site for our place w/o any permission from me and even w/o my knowledge! I have spent countless hrs trying to get them to take them off, and other area restaurants are experiencing the same problem, and likewise have signs outside of their establishments saying that they do not honor thier coupons. I/we are also looking into a class action suit against the restauant.com, for fraud, loss of business, illegal representation, theft, they are keeping the purchasers money, and we have never even heard from them! Beware of this very dishonest company.
I am a restaurant owner and would like to shed light on this corrupt company. We were recently approached by restaurant.com (RDC) and were solicited to join their website to gain more exposure. Upon meeting with hem I let them know right away that we were not looking to have someone else sell more vouchers to bring in more customers, and that if that was the purpose of their visit that we would not need to meet. The malicious sales people Sergei and Richard “Dick” quickly went into how they could get us up on their website so that we could have the exposure and benefit from their online reservation system and other services which seemed like concierge type services while out other vouchers already out there from Google offers and Livingsocial ran their course. They would then be able to start selling vouchers when we gave them the “green light” to do so. LIE, LIE, LIE!!!! They immediately started to sell the vouchers without our verbal consent and per our verbal agreement at the sales meeting. I, like many other restaurant owners out there that have been misled by this company are furious that RDC parades around trying to convince merchants that they are out to help them when in reality they are only looking to benefit from the merchants without providing any benefit to them, the textbook definition of a parasite. I feel that merchants need to find a law firm that will initiate another class action lawsuit on the merchants behalf, as we are all lined up and ready to jump on board with that possibility. Consumers should get on the side of the merchants as they are being strong armed by RDC into redeeming vouchers sold on their website with no limits and for 1 year, with the agreement automatically renewing unless the merchants give 90 day notice to cancel, and with a mandatory exit meeting with their representatives. They are also required to keep redeeming those vouchers for up to one year after cancellation. The reason why these merchants are out of business before people can come in and redeem them is because their business has be run into the ground by RDC. First off they are the only ones who do not share voucher sales with the merchants, and they require the patron to provide the only minimal benefit to the merchants by making them spend $10 over the value of the coupon/voucher and also require that a 18% gratuity me added into the bill prior to the discount being applied. Restaurant.com is the worst thing to ever happen to the food industry and need to be eliminated as quickly as possible or there will only be fast food and corporate owned restaurants to patronize in the very near future. Any lawyer out there, please help the public rid us all of this new parasite called restaurant.com, PLEASE!!!!!!!
How can I terminate the contract with RDC?
For my case, I made a contract with Feb. 27 and I realised that it is good for us so two days later I sent an cancellation notice.
I am not a business owner and am a manager. I signed it.
I am frustrated.
But they never return to me.
Is there any way that I can terminate?
I solved me problem by contect attony general, I sent a complaint to his office also a copy to RDC. RDC scared let us out of contract. one of my father’s friend who working in a insurence firm tought us
We have a small steak house in Southern Ohio restaurant.com call our answering machine but never talked to anyone .They then pirated pictures from our Facebook page and said we signed up .we have had people come in with these certificates we have called and emailed but they do not respond . Would love to be on a class action suit against these scam crooks
I too am having a nightmare trying to stop restaurant.com from selling certificates to my restaurant. My husband and I recently bought a restaurant that was already accepting these certificates, but not tracking them. I began tracking the certificate numbers and discovered that people were using the same certificates over and over by just making copies. When you call the validation line, it allows you to validate the same certificate more than once. We have lost hundreds of dollars because of this and we are not being reimbursed for these certificates. This is a SCAM and they need to be sued.
They are a scam and basically a group that has been very well trained to be evasive. A class action lawsuit is needed and needs to be started now! Anyone interested?
I too own at restaurant in St. Charles Missouri. We are lucky to still be open after giving away so much product with this horrible coupon. I too called to cancel only being told I had to wait 90 days which I did. They would not return phone calls, etc. What I found out was they were selling my restaurant.com coupons for $1 they last few days of my “contract”. In these economical times, its very difficult for this family restaurant to survive!!! I cancelled as of January 17 and have honored all coupons but I will be posting as of the end of this month I will no longer accept them. I cannot go on giving away the “house”!! I would love to know info on this on any class action suits in Missouri!!
Bhallsfamilygrill01@gmail.com
This company is AWFUL! I own a restaurant in Long Island, New york.
Without my authorization they started selling $ 10 and $ 15 gift certificates and cancelling $ 25 amount.
When i called them they said nothing they can do and basically said they can do WHATEVER THEY WANT!. Business managers name is NATALIE, and she should be ashamed of herself.Not only that they changed the password and i cannot access to management center on the website.
I called ( national association of restaurants ) in Washington dc. they cannot help.There should be a way.I will contact Better Business Bureau next, if they cannot help we should all get together and class action.
We are also experiencing the same problem with RDC. A salesman contact us a few weeks ago, but we told him we were not interested. However, they authorized it without our approval. They are using incorrect information on their website about us. And last night we had two customers come in with the GC in their hands. I hate to lose customers, but I told them we do not honor RDC. We have a new restaurant and can not afford to offer such a “deal”. The Better Business Bureau should be able to assist with this scam!
One thing I learned is whenever you have a complaint you need to do a few things
1) File a complaint against the company thru the Better Business Bureau. Any complaints posted will be available here: http://www.bbb.org
2) File a complaint with your State Attorney General office, These guys investigate deceptive practices, Click here to find one in your State. http://workathomemoms.about.com/od/workathomescams/a/State-Attorney-General.htm
3) Consult an Attorney and file a lawsuit.
4) Contact the Media: Television, Cable, Newspapers, Radio – Get the word out about the bad practices of a company, Remember companies hate “Bad Press” and they’ll do anything from being listed on the local news!
5) Protest – Get your friends involved and protest.
I own a restaurant in Washington and I am having the same problem with Restaurant.com.
I have put up signs for all my customers letting them know that we have terminated our relationship with Restaurant.com and we are no longer accepting Restaurant.com gift certificates.
To keep our restaurant in good standing and our customers happy, we are now offering to exchange any Restaurant.com gift certificate for 15% off their bill.
This has actually worked well for us. Restaurant.com may have ignored our numerous letters and phone calls trying to cancel, but for now we will do what we can with the free advertising.
I’ve been using them for a few years now and have had no issues until recently. It is a good deal, but you have to invest time to your homework as it seems that the website itself is updated on a monthly basis so they very likely may have the wrong information at the time purchase.
Case in point: I purchased a “certificate” coupon for a brunch place that was a bit out of our way a few hours before we headed out to the restaurant. The restaurant experience was satisfying however, when the bill came, the waitress kindly informed us that they no longer accept the restaurant.com “certificate” coupon even though restaurant.com continues to sell them. They told us that when they called restaurant.com to cancel their agreement, restaurant.com simply told them to tell their customers that they can exchange them for another restaurant that is still accepting them as payment.
Their “certificate” coupon is still available as I’m writing this.
So the moral of the story is: if you are going to use a restaurant.com “certificate” coupon, make sure you actually CALL the restaurant and verify that they are still accepting them before going. Also, I personally never buy a $25 restaurant.com “certificate” coupon unless they go on sale for $2 or less. So wait for the sales that come around every several months or so!
I bought 250.00 in nov 2014 waited 4 weeks and never received anything. contacted the company and they said it was an error and gave me 4 -$50.00 ecards and 3- $25.00 ecards. tried to use them at 4 restaurants. would not except them. Contacted them jan , was told they would put my money back in my banking account in 5 days. waited 10 days and never received anything in my account. called again got a supervisor. said she was sorry and she would make sure it was in my account this time in 5 business days. waited another 10 days, NOTHING. RESUARANTS.COM is a scam. WHAT TO DO ?