SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — The owner of The Food Box on Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach is sounding the alarm after falling victim to a scam that nearly cost him hundreds through popular food service app Grubhub.
Jorge De La Vega said in his roughly two years’ operating the business he’s never experienced anything like this and he’s hoping that by sharing what happened to him other small business owners will stay alert and avoid falling victim.
“That’s one of the main things that I told to my team after that, that every time that we get a big order, please let me know,” said De La Vega.
He said a recent pick-up order, worth nearly $500, is at the center of the scheme.
“I checked my email, and I had an email from Grubhub telling me that they are going to refund an order for a customer,” said De La Vega. He said he then called the company and was told someone claiming to be from his restaurant called Grubhub minutes prior and said they couldn’t fulfill the large order because the restaurant was about to close for the night.
However, De La Vega said after speaking with his staff they confirmed that no one from the Food Box had called Grubhub to cancel the order.
In this case the food was picked up and De La Vega got his money from Grubhub.
Just around the corner, the owner of Square Pizza Co. said so far, he’s not been targeted by the scam.
“It gets us worried about it for sure, we just got to wait. If a big order happens, we like to collect first,” said Bruno Lippi, owner of Square Pizza Co.
Lippi said there are safeguards restaurants can use with delivery drivers.
“We go in the Door Dash or the app and say we don’t want that driver to come pick it up no more,” he said.
Meanwhile, De la Vega thinks these situations are still a win for scammers, saying “They get the food and they get the money.”
FOX 5/KUSI reached out to Grubhub for comment and a spokesperson shared a statement that reads – “Grubhub is committed to supporting the small business community and helping independent restaurants on our platform grow and reach new customers. We recognize that refund and concession abuse can create frustration for our restaurant partners. To address this, Grubhub has an end-to-end fraud system in place that helps prevent, detect, and resolve diner fraud at multiple points in the order lifecycle. Our goal is to strike the right balance between supporting diners and protecting our partners, while continuing to invest in technology and processes that reduce fraud over time.”
Still, De La Vega wants Grubhub to do more. He said, “I hope that they improve their security because they’re already taking a big part of the order.”
Grubhub also provided the following additional information about how their app works:
- Partner support: If a fraudulent refund does slip through, restaurants can quickly flag it through the self-service credit request feature in Grubhub For Restaurants, which allows us to review and make it right.
- Pre-order checks: We block high-risk and known bad actors at checkout, so many fraudulent orders never reach our restaurant partners in the first place.
- Post-order review: When customers request refunds, we monitor for unusual or excessive activity. If fraud is suspected, Grubhub either absorbs the concession or denies the request outright.
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