Restaurant.com
reviews and complaints

I've had the exact same experiences. They are dishonest, they misrepresent the program, and are unwilling to respond to any issues.
DO NOT SIGN UP WITH RESTAURANT.COM, YOU WILL REGRET IT.
If you already have, I would suggest you send the letter now to get out, the process takes forever, and they will keep selling certificates.
IT'S A SCAM

THIS IS THE BIGGER SCAM IN THIS WORLD. I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM AND I AM TAKING RESTAURANT.COM IN COURT..THEY DID THE SAME THING TO ME...

Recently I went to the Mantra restaurant in downtown Jersey City. It serves Indian food. We had a LOT of leftovers - specially the rice -like 80% was leftover from 2 different rice orders - obviously growing up in a 3rd world country you cannot waste food or water, so we asked the waiter to pack it. To my shock the next night when I went to eat it - there was a TINY FRACTION of what should have been my leftover rice that I paid for and deserved to take home. I am very upset as this is the 2nd restaurant this has happened at. The first was Confucius in Jersey City where they gave me a tiny portion of my large schezuan eggplant dish leftovers! I stopped going there - and I guess I'll have to do the same to Mantra - the schmucks! What is up with that? Why aren't they packing what's rightfully my leftovers and giving me only a tiny bit to take home? Are they serving my leftovers to other customers? Its very annoying since I don't even open the bag until a day or two after having gone out - its usually late at night when I have no energy to call and yell at the manager for running such a dip-crap operation! And then there's the Brownstone diner with the obnoxious staff - after making 7 of us wait for over an hour and it was the 3rd time I went to ask the maître-de?/man when we were going to be seated - he said "if you ask me one more time I won't seat you at all!?" I was furious, I left with our out of town visitors and never went back there again either - I am sure if I was white he wouldn't be talking to me like that! So fed up with the restaurant experience around here - its so much better to stay home; but when you have company you're forced to go out because everyone wants to eat their own thing.. But its just such a pathetic experience at some of these places - specially when you think they're neighborhood places who should be interested in repeat business!

it clearly says on their site:

"Please note that Certificates cannot be returned for a refund of the purchase price."

and any restaurant or business has the right to refuse coupons at any time for any reason, read the fine print.

By going to the credit card company, you are skirting the rules of the site YOU agreed to by using it, which means you are in the wrong, not them.

Well yes you have to spend $100 to get $50off, but it clearly says that while your are browsing the coupon on the site. I have used that one many times. You spend $100 and get $50 off. So you are getting $100 worth of food for $50. Sounds good to me. Comes in handy when your pates are $40-$95 a plate. Like Henneys in Cola SC or Saluda's in Cola SC or the Brazillian Grill in Cola SC or BB Kings joint in Las Vegas or even the TV show "Chopped" Celebrity Judge Chef Aaron Sanchecz restaraunt in Las Vegas. Believe me $50 is about 1 persons plate in these extravegant places.I have been to all I have mentioned and used a Restaraunt.com certificate to assist my wallet.

I understand where you are coming from but I have used Restaraunt.com many times and purchased sertificates of places who no longer took them. The staff at restaraunt.com was always kind and eager to help me replace the cerificate with one of equal value. Although they did not give me a monetary refund but I still recieved the same item of equal value. And when I told them they no longer accepted certificates since 5 months prior, she actually contacted them and tried to find out why. After she was done with them, she helped me and the very next day, the restaraunt was sold out of certificates and within that same month, they were not on the list anymore. So I dont understand what happened in your case. I have always had positive experience with them. I have been using them for years since 2007 and about twice a month we go somewhere on date night.

this restarant.com .. they bad .. they're only think they do the business but they didnt think the restaurant owner will cover the food cost and rent employee and others ... we want to cancell but they didnt want to do it for us.. it's not right . we are not even use them or get the customer from them that much.. we ask to cancell or ownership change .. they dont want to do anything.. Gosh .. this company just want to make money from nationwide restaurant. send cheap customer.. most customer complaint here they siad they are not cheap customers if they siad are not cheap why use restaurant.com...cheap is cheap cant change... so think about it... look like restaurant just give food for free withou make any profit. we want to keep it run and stay ... people need a job... please understand..

If you think customer service was bad, wait til you use your coupon! Nightmare & totally fraudulent. Buyer Beware, stay away!

I too am a restaurant owner and I signed up for a 90 day period to accept the coupons and I followed my contract to the "T" including a notice to the company stating that my contract would be good for only the 90 days and then it would opt out - They call my business constantly and tell my employees that I will not be taken down until I do an "exit" interview with them - WHAT is that ? I even allowed some older customers to take a carryout so that they could make their minimum to try and be helpful and what do I get in return? Harrassed by this company and their refusual to honor my notice to remove myself from their site. I also have posted a sign at my front door stated that my 90 day contract is up and no longer accept the coupons. This company was given the written notice they said they required and then when I told them that something needed posted on the site about my contract end date so that people would not waste their money on the coupons that it wasn't "THEIR" problem - so who's problem is it? It doesn't allow me to make the changes to the site! So now my attorney said he will handle their fraudelent practices. BUSINESSES STAY AWAY>>>>>>

offer every rdc customer that comes in the same deal as rdc. That way you get the GC money and the difference in the GC vs. minimum purchase. RDC works as your advertising vehicle and then you steal all of their customers. Win win.

I put a sign on the front door and on our websight that posts "we no longer accept rdc coupons"

Restaurant.com also issued me fraudulent coupons - I found out the same day I purchased and they said NO REFUND as well - just would issue me another coupon for another restaurant of my choice... I protested said they are advertising restaurants that don't accept their coupons and they took no responsibility. Slimy company - stay away.

I have had a terrible experience with Restaurant.com due to their misleading terms and conditions, fraudulent promises and unethical practices. Their customer service is atrocious and borders on insulting. I would NEVER recommend that any restaurant owner get involved with this company. I have had to file twice now with the BBB to try to get my client removed from their website. It has been a complete and total nightmare. Then they threatened to come after me legally if I attempted to spread the word about my experience. What a joke.

We have a restaurant in North Carolina with the exact same pattern! We as the owners NEVER even saw or signed an agreement, then the coupons started rolling in. Once the coupons start rolling in you are stuck taking them pending cancellation or else it really pisses off customers... but then they REFUSE to cancel a contract you never agreed to in the first place!

We repeatedly called and cancelled for 6 months, then finally had to send cease and desist letters to their ISP and legal counsel, and they only removed our site once we threatened them and their ISP with copyright damages and treble damages under NC Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Today, NINE MONTHS AFTER their ISP finally took down our listing (which we had never authorized in the first place), they have the gumption to call and threaten legal action because our customers are now calling them asking for refunds because we will no longer accept the coupons (which we never authorized them to sell in the firt place).

This is the biggest scam on the planet. They are preying on small independent businesses that already have difficulty making it. There have got to be at least a dozen different legal claims restaurant owners can make against these ### based on tort law, fraud, misrepresentation, fraudulent inducement into entering contracts, unfair and deceptive trade practices (treble damages + attorneys fees), willful copyright infringement by displaying restaurant's copyrighted menus/photos without authorization, violations of laws governing gift cards and financial transactions, interference with business relationships with customers, and the list goes ON.

I will send this to your private email address as well, but I really think its time someone should take these suckers DOWN! Karma is b*&ch!

How many damn days in the row, do you plan on republishing this. GET A LIFE

Not legitimate

A new service is on the way. It will sell certificates at FACE VALUE. It will pay over the majority of the proceeds to the restaurant. Buyers of the certs earn 10% in rewards for dining, travel, electronics, from partners / advertisers of the site. So it does not kill restaurants. The site is about to launch, and is called restaurantbrowser.com, and also has nearly 100 websites that will feed in traffic. It will also go under the name dinnercertificates.com. If you want to reach out to me with questions, please email: armourarch@gmail.com - restaurants will be able to log onto the site, sign up free, and gain exposure, and clients, without selling out at 10 cents on the dollar, or even less. I agree, these early dining sites were bad. Help is coming!

I am a newbie in the restaurant game -- only 6 years in this and still learning. I realize that couponing only attracts the bargain hunters and does not help business except filling the empty seats at almost zero margin or sometimes loss. I was suckered in to Restaurant.Com scam recently believing that if minimum purchase requirement is 2x gift ceritificate face value I will at least recover the food cost. But one most popular gift certificate --$25.00 face value -- has only $35.00 purchase requirement which end up with negative margin when you factor in sales tax and credit card processing fee. I have requested Restaurant.com to change the minimum requirement to larger value and they have been hiding behind bureaucratic maze and delaying while continuously selling the gift certificates. After more than a moths of dispute and no resolution, I had to reject Restaurant.com gift certificates. I posted big signs in my restaurant and my website. Some customers get upset when they miss our notice in the website or in the restaurant, but most understand and agree to ask Restaurant.com for refund. I figure the customers who get angry for us not honoring the gift certificates are the ones who will never come back to our place unless there is a big discount anyway. So it is not going to be a much of loss to us. Anyway, if you have signed up with Restaurant.com, then you need to ask them 10to change the minimum purchase amount up to acceptable level, 2) limit total number of gift certificates issued monthly. If they do not cooperate, post big signs in your restaurant and on your website and tell the customers that you cannot honor the gift certificate since you cannot continue losing money.

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

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After thorough calculations, we lost $14.50 out of our pockets for a $25 gift certificate.
The meal is worth $35 which is $24.50 in raw material and labor. We only get $10 back from spending $24.50

We hoped to be on restaurant.com so it could bring in new customers which will come back and pay full price. It doesn't work like that.

Turns out everyone who used the GC will always come in with one, and some of our regulars who found out about GC would go on and purchase one. We have lost $2, 356 so far in participating with this site. Not from profit, from our pocket. Their staff told us we could raise the minimum, but when I called we can't. They said we can opt out the program in 90 days. We called, no one answered. We emailed, no one answered. So we posted on the page that we won't accept any certificates after 6/24.
The next day that message was removed and they changed our site password.

I just wanted customers to understand what restaurants are going through. No restaurant is making ANY money from these certificate. They sit back and get paid when you buy their GC. But we have to work hard to get the dishes served to you.

I am yet another restaurant owner victimized by restaurant.com. The sales representative said that we could cancel at anytime. Now it turns out that fine print says 90 days notice and an Exit Review is required in order to terminate.

The customers that restaurant.com brought in spent the bare minimum and never come back unless they have another gift certificate.

Owners, do NOT sign up with restaurant.com. You will regret it.

I let the Restaurant.com representative mislead me. I didn't read throughly the pages of fine print. I wanted to cancel immediately. They said we had to be on their website for 6 months before we could cancel and we are supposed to except them forever. I just wanted to try it. We still recieve them daily that were purchased last October. Please realize all the money goes to restaurant.com for marketing your business on their website. You will recieve zero dollars only grief. There are ways to manipulate them. I just wasn't told how. I made a huge mistake. The bad part is that we did this for exposure. Our regulars use them so we are preaching to the choir. The guests that use them only spend the minimum 99% of the time. The guests do not read the stipulations and get mad or ignore them and you are left holding the bag. Some guests have left the rest.com print out in check presenters like they were cash without reading the fine print. I suggest that you just give your money first away rather than get invloved. STAY AWAY!

I too fell for the "free advertising" aspect - but live and learn. You are so right about them not communicating - My phone at my restaurant is a BUSINESS phone - I do not accept calls for any reason other than emergencies - This phone is where I take my carryout orders and customer questions...They told me that they needed written 90 day notification for the cancellation and that was done - one of the gentleman on the phone told me that it would cancel as of May 20th and when I asked about something stating that on the site to keep customers from wasting their money by continuing to buy the coupons that I would no longer accept Restaurant.com's response was "Thats not our problem"... NOW the time frame is up - I'm still on their web site and their only comment is that I MUST DO AN EXIT INTERVIEW VIA PHONE WITH THEIR MANAGER to be removed from the site - BULL CRAP Restaurant.Com - When I left the Military they gave an exit interview debriefing - when I left the government they gave an exit interview debriefing -- -what do you need to debrief ? What a ripoff artist you are? Stay far away from this site - they are misleading, confusing and you are unable to reasonably work with any of their staff.

Hi suzidalal, sorry to hear that you also fail to Restaurant.com Scam! I'm a victim as well, I was losing money giving free food away and never made any profit from coupons being sold at restaurant.com they are making money of us... I had told them to take us off their program before the 90 days. But they have failed using different techniques to avoid us. They kept saying to validate the coupons and that they will take us out of their program after coupons where validate. But in the mean while they would keep selling the coupons they never stop selling them. I was fed up so I stop taking coupons I posted on my restaurant door 2 big notices that we are no longer taking restaurant.com coupons... People that come to our restaurant ask us why we don’t take the coupons and I tell them the truth.. Be nice to them and explain why and they will eat in your restaurant even if they don’t use the coupons. I hope this help. We need someone to protect us from these scams.

Here's what bugs me ... Often, when I use a restaurant.com gift cert, I always get a "Oh, you're one of those people" look from the waiter or manager which makes me feel like I did something dirty. That, unfortunately makes me NOT want to return to that restaurant.

But, on one case, the restaurant manager came to my table and welcomed me to their restaurant, asking me if it was my first visit. When I said yes, she began to tell me all about her restaurant and the weekly specials they had on certain nights, and some of their special dishes. It made me feel wanted and I'll go back there ... even without the restaurant.com gift cert.

shut up you spic

I purchased 3 coupons-2 @ $4 each one @ $20. When I completed my purchase, I could print the 2 $4 coupons but the one for $20 did not even show up.

I wish had read your posting before signing on the paper with them they are a scam~ big scam~

Screw RDC. Post a sign on your door and websight stating you don't take the coupons anymore and call it a day. If you piss off customers that use the coupons, oh well. They'll never be back without another coupon anyways. RDC is a profit eater

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.

You are being shortsighted in the scope of your comment. There are more issues at stake here than not comprehending the terms stated on the certificate. In my case, I purchased 20 certificates. 13 of them are worthless because now, merely a few months after these "no expiration date" certificates were issues, the restaurants are refusing to honor them. That is 3 out of 6 restaurants in my case. I am initiating a charge-back to the credit card company, as there are no other restaurants we would be able to use and even if there were, it would probably be an endless process of exchanging and exchanging as these restaurants are deciding to pull out of the program. I did not get what I purchased, the ability to use my certificate at the specific restaurants I chose.

you are so stupid, you work for this people, you like free things too, thats why you are here. dummy

Wheres the restaurants in the St.joseph, mo area mrs wise just curious Its a headache and a scam in the end not everyone wants a freeby but we sure cant pay the gas to drive all the way there and then get turned away cause the restaurant is not accepting

As a consumer, I bought certificates from Restaurant.com, but when I heard the complaints decided not to use them, I threw money down the rabbit hole, thanks to them. I received an email trying to recruit people to be Independent Consultants for Restaurant.com, and came here to read reviews, and hadn't realized which company it was until I again began reading the complaints. The entire site and business is just a sham for consumers and restaurants owners.

As for any restaurant.com shrills on this board, I can only say that there is no way that I am going to go into a restaurant not knowing how my family will be treated, or worse what kind of food we would be served. If I told management up front that I have a certificate, there could be food/service problems. If I presented the certificate after the meal, there could be payment problems.

Most consumers will go to restaurants looking for a free meal or just to complain.

As a consumer, not restaurant owner, I'll say that I've used restaurant.com coupons a few times and think its a great incentive to find new restaurants in the area. Once in the door, it's on the restaurant itself to determine if i'll be coming back or not. If I get bad food or service then you're absolutely right, I won't become a regular full paying customer! However I've discovered one particular great restaurant that I never new existed and never would have known about were it not for Restaurant.com. And the r.com reviews I read for this place are fantastic... the only reviews I found for them anywhere on the internet I should add. I do agree that this is a system easily abused and that should change. You should not be permitted to buy a certificate for a certain restaurant more than once, as it's should only be an incentive to try something new. I also think r.com should maybe tell consumers that THEY keep all money paid for the cert - I didn't know that until I looked more into the company. In the end, I do plan to go back the the restaurant I spoke of as a full paying customer. Unfortunately the economy has hit me too so how often I eat out has changed (which I assume has a big effect of why the return rate of customers is low) but I've also spread word of mouth advertising for them which is the best form of advertising, right? A great restaurant can shine on restaurant.com i'd think... but if you're not a great restaurant that's a different story.

I think they need to restructure the whole business. I believe that in the beginning a new customer certificate would be wonderful so you can "try out" a new place. But once you've been there before just a small discount would be wonderful. I have to say that we have tried a few restaurants that we normally couldn't afford or that we had just not heard of before and there are reasons people don't go back sometimes. We had bad experiences at most of them, and the one we didn't have a bad experience at was just simply far away so it can only be a once in a few months type of place to go eat and believe me when we are happy with our meal we are more than happy to pay full price the next time we go. Running a mom and pop place today is very hard, with sometimes very little reward. The best thing to do if you want to increase service is to sit down with a business adviser, marketing expert, or even just someone else who runs a more successful business and talk through what works and doesn't work and how you can change things to increase business where it's needed. In the end, that one time investment will save you more than if you go the restaurant.com route.

Hey jbs3626, you're mixing up the comments. My comment is below my name, not above it. Thanks.

gbjordan you must obviously work for restaurant.com customers are pissed that they can't use the coupons we asked you not to sell and the restaurants look like con artists. Thanks for your 100% honest review praising restaurant.com I can not wait until you guys go bankrupt for causing all these restaurants commotion. Maybe when a contract is signed your sales reps should sign with OWNERS not Waiters or Waitresses or Hourly line cooks. You know your company conducts illegal business and knows our restaurants have the RIGHT to deny coupons. See you in court. I'm sick of my restaurant looking like a crook and being posted on your websight when 9 months ago I asked for you to remove my restaurant and logo from your sight.

Restaurant.com is a blood sucking leech that misleads and bleeds dry independent restaurants. Most customers do not understand that restaurants are lucky to take 4 to 8% of total revenues to the bottom line even in good times, many have gone under in the financial crisis. Restaurant.com provides no legitimate source of advertising and the restaurant gets zilch back for all the free food and drink they give away. On top of that, it is typically regular customers who abuse the program by using dozens of them each week and never paying a reasonable price for the meals. The worst part is that Restaurant.com will not let you cancel the program once their misrepresentations become evident, so you are stuck taking more and more coupons because you cannot shut it down. After repeatedly trying to cancel, we finally had to threaten a $100k+ copyright lawsuit against both Restaurant.com and their internet service provier for contining to display our copyrighted menus and photos for several months despite our repeated objections. That was our only way to finally get rid of them!

Restaurant owners struggle every day in a highly competitive business in a down economy. If you want your favorite local restaurants to go out of business and all their employees to be out of their jobs, then keep on buying these ### sucking coupons.

I too own a small restaurant owner and agree this is a scam against restaurants, we do a large lunch trade so I tried Restaurant.com to try an increase dinner trade making the coupon only valid after 4PM. Restaurant.com changed the terms to include lunch I was giving $25 worth of food away my lunch check average is $9.00 so 3 meals basically for free and having to turn away full paying guests. I am in the business to make money and earn a living not give food away for free. I also had Restaurant.com guests trying to feed a whole family for free, if thats what you want hit Golden Corral, others angry because they don't want to abide by the terms they bought the certificate for get angry at me not Restaurant .com. I wrote a letter to the president of Restaurant.com to complain about his company and asked him to not sell to the guests that refused to not abide by the terms and he didn't even reply.

No Shirt, No Shoes...thanks for your insight. You're giving owners some advice here, and since I'm one of the two owners on this post, I'll assume it was directed at me. I didn't get roped in by a 'hard sell'. I was looking to drive traffic, and I didn't have the $$ flow necessary to do it. Trading COGS for guest traffic instead of $$ for guest traffic was what I got, and it was exactly what I thought I would get. The reason I made this post was because of all of the consumers complaining about the restaurants...why are the terms different for each restaurant? Why is the gratuity included? Why can't I get specials? Etc.

Here's my experience. I followed the rules and cancelled the program in writing 30 days prior to our anniversary. We continued to be listed on the site. Every gift certificate purchased from 6/09 until 2/10 had an expiration date 1 year from the purchase date (ex. Expires 12/23/10 except where prohibited by law). After 2/10, every gift certificate purchases stated on the bottom "This Gift Certificate Never Expires". R.com told me that "we didn't sell any extra gift certificates so, no big deal, and the expiration date was taken off because some states, like California don't allow gift certificates to expire." I asked if the 'except where prohibited by law' covered that, and he told me that it did, but they "changed it and let all of their customers know that some of the gift certificates will expire in 1 year." So, I'm left to piss somebody off that comes in with a gift certificate for my restaurant that says 'this never expires' because R.com supposedly let every one of their purchasers know that 'some restaurants have a 1 year expiration'?

With that said, I'll stand by my original post. The problem with Restaurant.com isn't R.com itself, it is the people that use the gift certificates. I'll argue that you can't compare the 'advertising' you get on R.com with traditional advertising. R.com advertising will drive more traffic in the short term, but its impossible to know what the long term benefits are. My experience is that a very small percentage of R.com guests come back as full price paying 'regulars'. That was confirmed to me by a R.com agent who told me that according to their studies less than 10% of their customers return as full paying guests.

So, as an owner, I'll tell you that R.com will generate unprofitable sales in the short term, and the long term gain in regular, paying guests probably won't be worth the extra COGS as compared to traditional advertising. If you do work with R.com, add every single one of those guests to your database, as it will increase the liklihood that they become your guests instead of R.com customers.

Jordan

Being the holiday season, I bought a friend of mine that is currently unemployed a chance to dine out. I carefully read the restriction and it clearly stated "a $35 minimum purchase" which I AGREED to. I bought a $75 gift certificate and I felt $35 was reasonable for dinner. To my surprise, AFTER I purchased the gift, get the e-mail to print it, it THEN tells me "must purchase a minimum of $150 at the restaurant." After contacting their customer service they said I agreed to the restriction by checking a box, which I DID, but it isn't my fault the restriction I agreed to BEFORE buying the product is different to the restriction that appeared AFTER buying the certificate. An OBVIOUS SCAM. I now am trying to get a refund through them or through my bank. It's embarrassing to give a "gift" where the person has to buy $150 worth of food and they are unemployed. My Holiday shopping turned SOUR the moment I got scammed by restaurant.com

Do Not Buy this!
Restaurants.com is rip-off! If you purchased the gift certificates, like my wife and I did, make sure you read the fine print. Basically you'll find that the participating restaurants make you purchase minimums (which didn't include the drinks) and, oh did I mention they tack on a mandatory 18% gratuity BEFORE the discount?
I figured out I saved 4$, on a $70 meal-I had to purchase more food than I wanted. Buyer beware: save your money and don't fall for these phony discounts!