HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. — These days, we can get almost anything delivered: goods, groceries, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Desserts, too.
The delivery service Grubhub asked Kristin Marin, the owner of Highlands Ranch dessert bakery Suga Me Sweet, to partner with the platform.
Because her orders are for custom desserts and take days to fill — and not hours — she said no.
Suga Me Sweet handles their own deliveries.
Marin said Grubhub listed her business anyway, without notice or permission.
“So, I start getting these random calls from people about Grubhub – ordering through Grubhub – and I have no idea what’s going on,” Marin said. “So, I go on Grubhub’s site and I found my listing – all of my menu, all of my graphics – all of my descriptions for all of my products were just uploaded to Grubhub.”
KUSA
Marin said she called Grubhub to get the listing removed.
“And so they said, ‘Well, that’s great. You don’t want to be on the site anymore. We need you to send a letter to our legal department to get removed,'” Marin said.
Marin hired a lawyer and sent a cease-and-desist letter to Grubhub.
The Suga Me Sweet listing on Grubhub came down.
But Marin said there were some other related problems.
“So, when I got removed from the platform, I then found on my Google listing – when people Google my company – there’s an ‘order now’ link that has ‘seemless.com’ – which is a subsidiary of Grubhub – and a Grubhub.com link,” Marin said. “So, they’re basically redirecting my customers to order through them. But…since the listing’s gone – when they click on that link, it’s a dead page at Grubhub. So, I don’t know where my customers go after they see that.”
Marin said if she sues Grubhub, it would be a tough case to win because she would have to prove damages.
“And I don’t know how I’ve been damaged,” she said. “I don’t know how many customers have been redirected to Grubhub from my site. So, I’m not sure how to even quantify what we could do if we tried to sue them.”
She also said the timing isn’t good for the bakery.
“This is the busiest time of year,” Marin said. “This is the worst possible time for this to happen.”
In a statement to 9NEWS, a Grubhub spokesperson said the platform adds restaurants based on local diner demand.
She said Grubhub removed Suga Me Sweet as soon as company leadership became aware the listing was a problem for the bakery.
The spokesperson did not address whether Grubhub should be asking permission before listing a new business.
Here’s Grubhub’s full statement:
Marin has filed a complaint against Grubhub with the Colorado Attorney General’s office. A spokesman said if the AG’s office determines Grubhub violated consumer protection laws, they’ll take action.