Yelp is Screwing Over Restaurants By Quietly Replacing Their Phone Numbers

A new report by Vice reveals yet another marketing tactic by Grubhub that attempts to maximize the commission fees it can charge to restaurants when customers order through the service. Yelp, a Grubhub partner, quietly hides a Grubhub-affiliated phone number when you choose to call a business from the Yelp app. An anonymous reader writes: According to Vice, a Yelp listing for a restaurant shows the correct phone number for the business. If users click to “order delivery or takeout,” they are presented with the option to order through a deep-linked Grubhub app. However, if they click the actual phone number listed to call the business directly, the phone number that appears on the dialer is not the official one that is shown on the listing. Instead, a different number is used so that Grubhub could track it as a “marketing” call, giving the company the ability to bill restaurants upwards of 30 percent commission instead of fees as low as 3 percent. Further reading: Meal-Delivery Company GrubHub is Buying Thousands of Restaurant Web Addresses, Preventing Mom and Pop From Owning Their Slice of Internet.