Restaurant.com review: Scam 71

Cheap is cheap...I've used these coupons numerous times and never had a negativ e reaction from a decent restarunt! The problem is the customer who wants six napkins, four glasses of water, a dozen toothpicks, several matchbooks, and a doggy bag for the majority of their order!

Restaurant.com is truly a big ### scam. they avoid the topic of the term of contract and trick restaurant owners into signing the contract with whole bunch of fine prints on them please becareful and dont fall for them or you will end up like me.

I'm really glad that 18% is included.I just enjoy looking your cheap and surprised faces when you realize that you actually have to tip your server.90% of coupon users would never tip their servers .what do you think, you would like to order a penny over minimum purchase, and then receive 25 off, without paying for service?I've heard that wolmart is about to open a chain of restaurants... that's place for you, low-coupon-lifers...and yes I'm server.

Asking customers, would you go back to a restaurant to pay full price knowingly that you can pay less?

If your answer is yes, I truly hope there are more people like you.

As a restaurant owner, to the people saying restaurant.com is bring more customers to the restaurant.
that's true it does bring people, but no money. No money at all.

Say if you were to purchase a meal at the minimum,

as restaurant normally pays $24 to bring out $35 value meal and that's raw material cost, labor, rent and so on. Restaurant only makes $10 back after spending $24. Where's the logic that they make any money?

As human nature, everyone likes to save money and a person can sign up for as many emails. I have a customer who comes in 4 times a week using the coupon.

True, regular diners must be earned, but like I mentioned, only one out of ten people would come back without a coupon. And that's also because the town we're in.

Restaurant.com has a contract that we can be opt out within 90 days. But they don't pick up calls nor answer emails till 90 days pass. And it's $1000 a restaurant has to pay to restaurant.com for termination.

Customers, you have to invest money to get the certificates, restaurants also have to invest food and labor to get food served to your table.

What does restaurant.com invest?

Furthermore restaurant.com has changed my password in order to prevent me from going in there to make any changes and refused to give me the new password.

SUPPORT YOUR FAVORITE RESTAUANT, NOT RESTAURANT.COM

And to the person who said if a restaurant treated a customer nicely maybe they'll come back and pay more and tell their friends.. why do you think they used the coupon in the first place? People use coupons to save money. Between going into a restaurant and pay $35+tip and going to a nice retaurant and pay $19 tip included, they will definitely go for the second choice.

it;s happen to my restaurant as well... without certificate they wont come back...my big mistake to do the business with them...

it's true .. its bring alot of customer but we didnt make any penny from them... customers always order to fit the value of the certificate and cheap act customer... and never see them back..

and customers they think only how can save money but they didnt think about how restaurant owner will lost their profit and close door ... unfair unfair.. as i restaurant owner .. no matter what happen we keep smile eventhough the customer wrong ... we do our best to keep is on going... please think about our side as well please ... to all customers...

Too much whining in this thread, between the "poor" restaurant owners to the disgruntled, elitist servers...owners: READ a contract before you sign it, and don't sign if you don't like the terms; servers: get an education and get a real career so you can stop complaining about tips...I was a server while getting my degree, and, yes, SOME people are cheap and don't tip...those people get offset by the nice people who tip 20% or more...I was once tipped 46 bucks on a $54 meal by a very nice older couple because I was nice to their grandson, that tip more than made up for any stiffs I got on that shift...

i had an year contract, after that restaurant.com won't cancell my account. still selling gc on their website. i put note:won't accept rgc" customers are pissed. but i have to do it because my contract is finished. i have been trying to talk to them almost month now. everytime i am on the phone with them i feel like i am criminal in the court room. all the harass, questions, wont let me talk and calling me liar etc. i need good lawyer who can take them to court. anyone?

I encountered the same bad experience. They do not conduct as they promise. They were supposed to sell $25 gift certificates for my restaurant for $15, found out they were selling them for as little as $3 per. Called corporate office to complain - received no apology, no explanation, and no solution. Horrible company to work with. Kills food cost, attracts cheap customers, and worst of all - THE CERTIFICATES NEVER EXPIRE. I will be dealing with this crap for months to come.

Two restaurants that I have worked for use to be part of the restaurant.com. The first place was a 5 star restaurant and the coupons brought in allot of business; however, there was to many people that had this coupons and there was no profit. I did enjoy the 18% added tip because of those cheep jerks that tip after coupon which is 98% of the population. My boss called the company said she wanted out (my boss is a little lady from Africa who is so sweet and this is her family business.) they ignored her request and kept selling them. she is now struggling to keep her place open.

the place I work at now stop accepting them and they even wrote a nasty letter to restaurant.com. Funny thing is after the letter was wrote they started selling the coupons for that restaurant for 2 dollars. I have many customers that come in and get pissed off at me when I tell them we no longer accept restaurant.com they become upset like it is our fault and make comments like "why don't you cancel with them then" I calmly explain the situation and tell them for future advice call the restaurant you want to buy the coupon for and see if they accept it because it is a scam and many are backing out.

with that said this is a scam and it is not the restaurants fault. This is hurting independent restaurants and needs to be stopped.

I also had a very negative experience with Restaurant.com. I tried to use the gift certificate that I purchased and the restaurant said they would not honor it. The only reason I went there was because of the gift certificate. In any case, I called restaurant.com for a refund and they said they can only give credit towards another certificate. I checked their site and couldn't find a replacement. I told them it wasn't my fault that you have a restaurant on their site where they will not honor the certificate. They should take these restaurants off immediately. Yet instead, they further damage the reputation of the restaurant by continuing to sell certificates (so they can attract more buyers) for restaurants that no longer want to be on their site and make buyers more frustrated that they are stuck paying full price at a restaurant they may or may not have originally chosen to eat at.

Anyways, I found a website that is up and coming where you can download a really good coupon for free. There is more selection in the Los Angeles area but it seems like they are adding more everyday. www.stretche.com I want this website to continue growing as it seems like they are providing a really good service.

I am a restaurant owner. Unfortunately I have gotten involve with this scamming company, if I had known from the beginning how they worked I would not have even talked to them. They did not disclose any information about selling coupons or gift certificates to costumers, nor did they mention the fact that they keep all the money from those sales. According to the sales representative they wanted to put our name in their website for people to comment on it. This has caused us major economic problems since we are not getting any money from it. We tried to cancel, but they have REFUSED TO DO IT. THEY WON'T CANCEL AND THEY WANT US TO HONOR THE GIFT CERTIFICATES WHICH THEY KEEP SELLING FOR AMOUNTS OF 10 - 100 DOLLARS.

If anyone wants to organize a lawsuit against Restaurant.com please contact me at leuzhca@yahoo.com.

I am a restaurant owner. We are in a small town in upstate NY and signed on with rest.com to promote our newly opened restaurant. We DID read the contract that they gave us. However, rest.com will just do as they please anyway.

While the coupons do bring in new customers, that's all it does for my business. There are specifications on each certificate that the consumer should follow, but 85% do not read these. Such as, the 18% gratuity, one can't use the coupon for take-out, can't use more than one at a time, etc. All of which are things that the people at restaurant.com put on each one, not the restaurant.

Also, the consumers that come in are not the kind that any restaurant that wants to make money should want. They are cheap and get only water to drink, share only one appetizer and one entree between them, then review the check with a fine tooth comb. If that's not bad enough, they go on to our rest.com page and post a comment that just complains, when our manager had checked on them and they didn't say a thing. We do remember our customers, we are a small restaurant.

As for the 18% gratuity, I fully agree with them putting that on the certificate. It's patrons like the ones I mentioned before that would not tip on the full amount or even the discounted amount. I may be losing money because of this, but I do not want my staff to.

As far as we are concerned, rest.com is a trap and hopefully other business reads these comments before making a decision with signing with them. People who may be using these, I understand why and it may seem like a great deal, but there are other people who's livelihood is suffering because of this mistake. Just be understanding and save your money. I have felt that if you need to save this much money when going out to eat, you shouldn't be doing so. No offense intended.

It's a scam, usually, if you do the math. First, you have to show it at the beginning of the meal, so you get smaller portions. Then, they often calculate the 20% mandatory gratuity (because the only way to spend enough to use the coupons is to bring a party of 6, which necessitates the higher gratuity) on the full taxable amount, and the tax is on the full amount too. So, the discount is completely offset by the much higher tax bill and gratuity that you'd usually pay, so a $50 gift card might save you perhaps $5 or $10 overall on what you'd pay without it.

Thus, if you pay more than $5 or $10 on the coupon, you're actually going to lose money, and it's not worth the hassle anyway (or the smaller servings, as I've seen at every restaurant in Sacramento where I've used the coupons).

Do the math. Of course it's a scam. In this economy, there are no true loss leaders.

Do not deal with Restaurant.com. It is a bad business partner for restaurants. It exploits the desperate situation small restaurant operators face in this down turn by promising increased traffic but not telling the cost associated with it. Please note that there is no national chains or franchises participating with Restaurant.com The larger chain restaurants have the staff to run the numbers and read the fine prints to figure out that the Restaurant.com Gift Certificate program gives Restaurant.Com a cart blanche to print the money at the cost of participating restaurants. Consumers buying the Gift Certificates do not really get the face value discount after adding in sales tax, gratuity in addition to the purchase price. Also consumers are forced to over spend to meet the minimum purchase requirement. As you can see in other numerous complaints, Restaurant.com will not cooperate partners or customers once they got their money.
Again please stay away from it.

I'm confused. You start the post with it's bad for small restaurants but turn around and say consumers buying the discount don't really get it after tax and gratuity.

Either way, you are wrong. I buy them all the time. My job offers an additional 50% off the pricing on the site. I am a person that enjoys a martini on my weekend dinner and I can see right on the site, 99.9% of restaurants don't include drinks in the offer. So that makes me spend 9-15 extra dollars on a bill to cover my minimum requirement for the coupon. Good for the restaurant.

I buy the coupons with open eyes, while I might had to spend the extra 9 on food, Guess what? My husband LOVES to eat. He's one of the lucky few that can eat eat eat and never gain any weight, so I indulge him. More food for him and he's happy. Plus the site is VERY upfront about it ( the restaurants make the rules, not them) . So now, I'm getting 50 dollars worth of food, for only 12.50. How can that NOT be a great deal? Even if you count the 9 dollar drink, it's still more than a 50% discount.

We love these coupons when going out with other couples, we get to "pay" for their part of the dinner and 9 times out of 10, all we really are paying for are their beverages.

I tip anyway, that's a give in for going out to eat, so you can't say " well with a tip its not a good deal" because if you go out to eat and don't tip, you shouldn't be going out to eat anyway. (and you should tip based off your NON discounted amount, not the discounted amount! )

I'll tell you a ripoff, and it's not the sites fault. Its the high end places. Buy our 50 dollar coupon but you can only use it when you spend 200 dollars, not usable on specials, not usable on drinks, not usable during hardly anything ect ect... those places are just nuts.

We also just recently signed up with them and that was a huge mistake! We tried to get out of the contract and have not receive call backs for almost two weeks now. It is so hard to get them to work with us and do it the right way.

I own a restaurant that was part of the restaurant.com program in 2009. We cancelled after 1 year and were asked to honor the coupons for another year after that. We did.
Now we are having people present coupons that are over 2 1/2 years old and complain that we will not take them any more. That is unreasonable, especially since restaurants.com does not give a penny of the amount of sale to the restaurant. They keep it for themselves and the restaurant is responsible for the $25 bill reduction. It is not a good set up and it puts the customer and the restaurant in a bad position while restaurant.com keeps the money. In addition, once the contract is cancelled restaurants.com immediately shuts down access to the certificate validation website so there is no way to validate the certificates without calling an 800 number. Servers don't have time during a service to call in a validation for each coupon presented. Can you imagine?
Can't do anything about it at this point, it is just a really bad setup.

Hey, I used restaurant.com certificates from time to time, especially when I am out of town. I do enjoy saving money from time to time, but I also can understand the restaurant's point of view. I once got a 50 dollar gift certificate at a restuarant and ended up spending well over 150 bucks, making the restaurant 100 dollars. If I didnt have the certificate, the restaurant never would have made any money from me, so I get a little aggravated at restaurants saying people are just trying to be "cheap". No one forced you to sign up with them, and you should have known what to expect before signing on the dotted line. You're the owner, and you opened the business, so I wouldnt be blaming anyone but yourself if you're not getting cutomers in your restaurant, maybe something needs to be changed. Also, you as a restaurant, can state the terms of the coupon. Ive seen some coupons state you need to spend 35 to get the 25 off, 50 to get 25 off, or the purchase of 2 entrees. Its the restaurant's job to get repeat customers. Thats the whole reason youre in the business, right? there will always be cheap people, especially in this economy. You cant blame them for trying to save a buck.

Also, I always read the terms, and have no problems with the 18% gratuity, as i normally always tip 20% before the discount. Im nto trying to rip anyone off, Im just trying to save some money. Ive purchased some restaurant.com certificates and I always present them before ordering to be sure there will not be a problem when the check arrives. Ive had some restaurants decline the cert. And I thank them and walk out. Ive always been credited back.

WATCH OUT FOR THIS ONE YOU HAVE TO SPEND A LARGE AMOUNT TO USE THE CERTIFICATE IN MY CASE 200 DOLLARS AND YOU HAD TO AUTOMATICLY LEAVE AN 18-20 PERCENT GRATUITY ...NOW HOW CAN 2 PEOPLE EAT 200 BUCKS WORTH EVEN 4 PEOPLE AND DID I MENTION DRINKS WERE NOT INCLUDED.

These Bloodsuckers are the Worst

We bought a restaurant recently and discovered after opening that they had just signed up with restaurant.com just the month before. I called to tell them to take our restaurant off the site since we didn't sign up with them. They tell me its a free marketing service and that it transfers over automatically. So I ask them how do I get my restaurant off their site. They say it takes 90 days. And you have to take their certificates for those 90 days.They also continue selling the certificates during those 90 days. Their claim is that they need to make their money back after all the "free" marketing they gave you. After that you have to take an exit review. What BS. They also take forever in contacting you. I contacted them in the beginning of the month and they didn't get back to me at all. I had to finally call them again 3 weeks later. I actually sent them a letter for the 90 day, saying I would take the certificates cause our customers were starting to hate us and not come back. What are we supposed to do? It makes us look bad. But our over head is high and our food is priced low. So I'm thinking of just not taking them anymore. They said they would bill us for the amount they sold cause they would have to refund the customer. BS they don't refund it, they just give them a certificate to another restaurant! Is there a class action lawsuit against them? Where do I sign up?

We had a similar experience with RDC and ended up getting our attorney involved. We've collected the email addresses of several people who would be interested in possible class action against them. If you'd like to send me your email address, I will add you to the list and let our attorney know. I do have some recommendations for you as far as dealing with them.

1. If you speak with them on the phone, record the conversation, be sure to let them know you are recording if required in your state. When I was finally called back by the 'acct manager' I told them I was recording and that I was considering this phone call to be my exit review.
2. Inform them in writing that you are giving them the 90 days notice. Also inform them that you want a detailed report of all certificates sold including how much sold for, email address, date, and name of individual. Request this report each month during the 90 day period.
3. You may not want to validate the coupons either, we found in our contract that by validating a coupon, you were automatically agreeing to the terms and conditions posted on their website. (which they could change without you knowing) Might be worth talking to your attorney about this.
4. Go into your account online and get all of the information about the coupons that have been redeemed. This is YOUR information and you should have a record of it. Email address will be useful to get people back in when they can no longer get the certificates.
5. Try to check your account activity to see if they were sticking to the terms of the contract that list how many certificates they will sell. This can be tough to argue with them because they speak in terms of 'tables' filled' and claim that they have to sell x amount to fill that number of tables. They may say 'to fill 3 tables per day, we have to sell 14 certificates...' or something like that. Total crap and just a technique to cover their ###.

Good luck!

info@canstaqueria.com

I own a restaurnat in Alabama we thought it was a good idea not only misrepresent but they are impossible to get free from, I would be happy be a part of a class action suit

Here are the ceo, founder & vp
http://www.linkedin.com/search/fpsearch?fname=+&lname=Chessick&keepFacets=Y&facet_G=us%3A14&pplSearchOrigin=SEO_SN&trk=SEO_SN&csrfToken=ajax%3A5615182150552498529&domainCountryName=#facets=lname%3DChessick%26searchLocationType%3DY%26keepFacets%3DkeepFacets%26facet_G%3Dus%253A14%26pplSearchOrigin%3DSEO_SN%26viewCriteria%3D1%26sortCriteria%3DR%26facetsOrder%3DG%252CCC%252CN%252CI%252CPC%252CED%252CL%252CFG%252CTE%252CFA%252CSE%252CP%252CCS%252CF%252CDR%26page_num%3D1%26openFacets%3DN%252CG%252CCC

Cary Chessick ceo
Kenneth Chessick founder

Ellen Chessick vp

Robin Chessick loyalty programn

You would not be eligible to participate in any lawsuit against restaurant.com.

Your claim is against the last owner you bought the restaurant from, as you purchased the assets as well as the liabilities of this business. The certificate marketing program is a liability.

So, is it a $50 off your bill of $100? 50% discount still not bad...it's a much worse deal for the restaurant...

It's not meant to be like a traditional gift card where you pay $50 and you have $50 to spend. The website is a discount site. If you want to get $100 worth of food for $50, it's perfect. And for some people, it works. I personally was happy to only pay $10 for the $20 of food I ordered at a restaurant. However, because the website has such limited choices, I've only used it once.
It's not a scam in any shape or form.