Grubhub

I placed an order for a couple coffees from the local Starbucks this morning. You assigned a driver to pick up the coffees, but about 35 minutes after the order, that driver was removed.

About 10 or 15 minutes later another driver was added for my delivery. It took them about 15 minutes to arrive at Starbucks to pick up the order. By the time the driver delivered the coffee, it was over 90 minutes after Starbucks had brewed it. The hot espresso was at room temperature, as was the cold frappuccino.

Neither of them were drinkable, so we threw them out.

I disposed of both coffees as they were obviously not what I ordered and went to the Grubhub site to file a claim. I filed it, but was notified I might get a $5 credit for the order after it was reviewed. I paid $20+ for the order, $5 is not a reasonable credit for a bad product that was 100% the fault of Grubhub for their delayed delivery.

I then went to the Grubhub website and found the 'chat' option to file complaints about an order. I chatted with a supervisor by the name of Loredette V.

(case # 27949****) who claimed the only option for their mistake was a credit to my account that would only apply for 30 days. The credit offered was not for the cost I paid, but initially $10. Due to this very negative experience with Grubhub, I declined the offer. She eventually bumped the credit up to $25 but it would still only last for 1 month.

Again, due to this very negative experience, combined with the lack of surprise everyone I had chatted with had about the delivery being so late suggesting this was a common occurrence, I requested the credit to last at least 1 year. She refused and reiterated 30 days is the max time a credit for Grubhub's mistake could last. At that point I requested to speak with someone at the corporate level since she claimed she was unable to do anything else. She gave me a phone # 877-585-****.

I called that number provided and ended up speaking with a supervisor by the name of Lea.

She opened a new case # 27949****. She informed me that Grubhub's policy does not allow a refund for late or ruined deliveries. I asked her where I could find this policy on the Grubhub website and she informed me it was "internal". When I confronted her about an "internal" policy that Grubhub is apparently hiding from their customers she told me policy does not allow me, the customer, to view this "internal" policy that she is using to deny a refund.

I do not understand how I can possibly agree to a policy that I am not allowed to read, even when that policy is being invoked to refuse a refund for poor service and not receiving the product I paid for.

Lea claimed she would escalate the ticket to upper management but she could not tell me how I could check on the status, when, or even if I would, get a response. She repeatedly claimed Grubhub uses these complaints to improve future policies but she refused to explain to me why every person I chatted with or spoke to acted like this was an extremely common issue.

It seems like it would be very easy for Grubhub to deal with a driver shortage. Wait until a driver is assigned to deliver the meal, and has confirmed they are leaving for the restaurant, before they place an order with the restaurant. Notify the customer there will be a delay in delivering their food, if you would like to cancel the order you may do so now, if you still want the order we will place the order with the restaurant as soon as we have a driver available to pick it up.

Do not place the order and then search for a driver to deliver it.

While this was only a $20 order, I will not place a dinner order where I would pay from $50-$100 for warm food that could arrive freezing cold because Grubhub isn't staffed, especially when Grubhub refuses to refund what the customer paid for a warm meal.

Update: As I was writing this complaint I received an e-mail from Grubhub.

"Sorry for the confusion regarding the refund on order".

They are refunding me the money I paid for the order.

I contacted 4 people at Grubhub about this order, chat rep, chat rep's supervisor, phone rep & phone rep's supervisor who all claimed it was against Grubhub policy to refund an order due to delivery delay even if the product was ruined due to that delay. I am not sure why 4 Grubhub reps would all share the same "confusion" about their refund policies unless the policy really is an "internal" policy no one, including the supervisors at Grubhub, has the right to read. It sounds like Grubhub leadership just tells their employees to refuse refunds with the hope that the customers will not continue pushing the complaint up their chain.

I guess the lesson is, if you get screwed by Grubhub, take up as much time as you can with the 'supervisors' as possible and force them to 'upgrade' the complaint. Very poor way for a company to bring in new customers or even keep their current customers.

Grub apparently allows drivers to manage multiple deliveries at a time. While this is great for the driver, it leads to some clients receiving their food late and cold. When this issue is reported to customer care, they merely repeat the information already displayed in the app, which is not helpful. When asked further, agents simply recite a script, usually something along the lines of: 'Sorry for the inconvenience, we care', and so on. The end result remains the same, the issue is not corrected. What's worse is that you can only receive a credit. Therefore, Grubhub never loses when the customer does. The driver doesn't lose, and neither does the store, only the customer. This is not customer service.

While I normally wouldn't resort to this, the only option left seems to be issuing low star ratings to the drivers. Grubhub forces the customer into a corner because they find a way to evade the issue.

Grubhub, if interested in improving customer care, should revise its policy and introduce refund options as well as accountability for its customer base. If the order was late, the question that begs answering is: Why was it late? What caused the problem? If you refund the client, at least the customer is compensated. A credit, however, leaves the possibility for the problem to reoccur with no tangible solution in sight, and the customer continues to lose.