Restaurant.com
reviews and complaints

On October 10 I ordered 3 Fragrance.net certificates to meet their minimum. However when I tried to redeem on Fragrance I got an error stating the cert # was invalid. I called Restaurant.com who told me the certs were valid & that I should call Fragrance.net. They suggested that I redeem on Restaurant.com & that I would be given a cert # that I could use on Fragrance. However that didn't work out & so I had to call Restaurant to retrieve my cert to show as unused. I have called & emailed many times but to no avail. I even sent images of the issue to Restaurant. Today is Dec 4th & the issue still remains unsolved. Both companies have Terrible customer service & no follow through. Restaurant.com should not sell a service that they cannot offer. This is practically fraud. I would not recommend anyone purchasing any certificates from Restaurant.com.

On october 28, 2013, I had accumulated over $500 of gift certificates from restaurant.com. Since none of their restaurants were local to me, I chose to apply/redeem the points/dollars to my account. I, recently, lost my job and realized I had all this money in my account (or thought I did), so I thought I could redeem points to get some free meals. Their website is saying I have zero points/dollars! Ripoff artists! I have no time or money to take them to court, so they ripped me off for $505 of my hard-earned money! I am almost 64-years-old, unemployed, and partially disabled! Grrrrrrr

Paid $30 and the Restaurant.com part has high minimums that I did not know.
I called 800 # [protected] I tried to cancel within an hour of buying, they said No!
I said the minimum orders are high $20 to $50 and I can not use the food vouchers.
They don't care, no refunds.

If my note helps anyone else...

I wish I'd never heard of Restaurant.com

Ellen Hotz
Grand Rapids MI

On 5/3/18 I exchanged 7 certificates as those were all unused certificates. After the exchange I was offered the option to "redeem now" or "redeem later". I chose to redeem all later. When I went into my account there were no certificates or gift cards with which I could use to acquire other certificates. The total value of these certificates was $115. I have tried all day to reach Customer Service on the phone and constantly received a busy signal. At this point I am reluctant to use this site for further certificate purchases. Could someone inform me what happened to my exchanged certificates? How can I be reimbursed?

11/10/2017

I came to Mesa last night and left upset over their policy. I love to eat out and try different venues and foods. I have been to upscale elegant restaurants as food trucks. With these being said I consider Mesa to be in the middle of an upscale restaurant and food trucks. As such I believe their policy and customer service should reflect them as the restaurant reputation they are trying to achieve.
Last night I came to Mesa with a group of friends, we planned ahead and made a reservation to avoid having to stand around all night. The evening started great the bartenders were super friendly, informative and helpful. We started with a group of 6 and were waiting for the rest of our party to arrive (they were running late). We arrived around 5:50 and our reservation was set for 6:10, we were seated and started ordering drinks immediately, by 9 pm our bill was at approximately 550.00 give our take 20.00 dollars. We were still ordering as we waited for the rest of our friends (we had received a text from our friends stating they would be arriving in about 15 minutes), when the waitress/hostess comes to our table and informs us our allotted time at the table is up. We were a little bewildered at her statement as we were still consuming alcohol and spending money at this venue. It has been my experience that the only restaurants/ venues that give you an allotted time are the ones that serve buffet and that's to limit the amount of food one serves themselves in 90 minutes and this is reasonable if looking at it in a business/profit for the place, but this isn't the situation with Mesa. IF we were sitting there and not consuming any food or alcohol then it would be understandable for them to ask us to give up our table because they are wasting the possibility of making money by another group of people that would consume BUT this wasn't the case. We were asked to give our table up only for the possibility of someone coming in and requesting bottle service. If as a consumer you go out and spend a couple hundred dollars for food and drinks I'm sure your expectations of this venue would be different if asked to leave when our night was not over. If I wanted to be asked to give up my table (spot) I would have gone to a whole in the wall and even then I believe we would not have been asked to leave the table we were at.

The only reason I am granting 2 stars is for the bartenders who provided great customer service and who assisted with getting our night started correctly.

This site is crap. I thought their would be normal restaurants on hear. I was surprised to see that they had none for Zanesville Ohio but they didn't even have anything for our capital of Columbus either. I'm highly dissatisfied and thought it would be much better then this. I received a $25 gift card and don't even know what to do with it. Theirs nothing close to me and and definitely nothing I've heard of.

The site rely on the consumers to keep their site up-to-date and even when they have known about restaurants that have stopped accepting their certificate they continue to sell the certificates to unknowing buyers. They might as well sell certificates to any company and restaurant in the world and keep taking everyone's money. I'm sure this is illegal and a big class action law suit is sure to follow.

Can't pull up my gift cards that I have in my account, over $100 worth. Customer service lines always ring busy. Maybe they have so many complaints they just leave the phone off the hook, IDK. Big Rip Off! Web site is poor at best because if you click a link the page won't load. I contacted customer support once before and they replied days later and really did not answer my questions. Gift cards always leave a few dollars in you account and you can't use the change from a purchase, so its money you end up giving them. WE NEED A CLASS ACTION SUIT TO GET THIS COMPANY SHUT DOWN!

Purchased 2 twenty-five dollar gift cards for 10 dollars each the restaraunt declined them stating they are not for their store! Told this happend to other people too! Spent the money prior to going now I am out 20 bucks and I will never use restaraunt.com ever again! I will also pass on this negative feedback to all of my friends and family ! Never again!

I went to starving artist cafe in easley sc today and spent 50.00, attempting to use a 25.00 GC. They refused to honor it. I'm pretty upset as the r3staurant wasn't great to begin with and then having to spend all my cash, not to mention the extreme embarrassment of being refused.
I don't understand why the cafe doesn't post that they don't accept the GC instead of springing it on you when it's too late. I owned several restaurants and gladly accepted the GPS. But nowadays there are so few restaurants and next to impossible to use. I also see loads of complaints online so it's probably not long before restaurant is out of business. I really feel like I should be reimbursed for the 25.00 I paid and you can gladly have the GC.

I purchased the certificate Dec 10 and try to use it Dec 18. The owner told me the certificate is old and he will not accept. I got the only offer from restaurant.com for $10 to exchange with $20 use. He claimed he does not have this offer. He basically refused me to use the coupon.

I do not understand. I have been a customer with restaurant.com years and never have problem with the restaurant. He is rude and he makes me feel like I scam him? He told me my certificate is not valid? He said anything to discourage me to use the certificate. I feel like a fool!

I told him if not for the restaurant.com, I will never know there is a mini mart here. I am angry and I think he ruined the reputation. He should be out from restaurant.com.

Tonight (12/11/2016) I attempted to use the first of several of your certificates issued through my UA mileage account only to be rebuffed at the restaurant that refused to accept the "Does not expire, " $25 certificate.

The Phanom Thai Restaurant
400 Waller St.
San Francisco, CA 94117
[protected]

I specifically showed them the certificate and pointed out that is says that it was purchased on 8/16/2016.

I shall be happy to wait 72 hours before reporting this to the California Attorney General's office.

Sincerely,
Richard Bellerose

Please help? Ive tried the web page over 20 times and ive called a dozen times. And nothing! I have eight certificates that all are to permanently closed restaurants. Ive tried to "exchange" these through the web site but it never worked. I typed everything precisely as it should be and it tells me the code i typed for proof im not a robot is always incorrect. I have attach pics so you can clearly see that is wrong! I emailed and only received a generic "how to exchange" reply. It's not working! Therefore, generic responses do nothing. I tried to call and your customer service phone number is outside my calling area! Wtf is that?!?!? I just want a human to try and understand my frustration. Your app and web page blow! I need real help! From a human being! What an unbelievable hassle this is!

im listing all EIGHT of my gift certificates that are to places permanently closed and maybe, just MAYBE, a person will help...

[protected]. 11/29/2010. $25.00
[protected]. 11/29/2010. $25.00
[protected]. 11/29/2010. $25.00
[protected]. 11/29/2010. $25.00
all four are to a place that WAS called,
"IL Cielo" now, permanently closed.

[protected]. 11/29/2010.
[protected]. 11/29/2010.

Those are for The Village Inn.

and,

[protected]. 12/22/2012.
[protected]. 12/22/2012.
these were for a place called KrisCroix

please someone help? need a real human to actually help, anyone...

I am enthusiastically informing the planet that your site is a scam. Have already contacted the better business bureau and you're already on their ####-list, not shocking.

They contacted me to redeem my gift certs and the site is broken. This ALWAYS HAPPENS. I e-mailed the help section four times and got back nothing but automated responses that were clearly generated to answer general questions about how to use the site. No human is ever available to actually answer anything.
The service is mediocre as the certificates have such $ minimums that I typically have to buy way too much to even use them and if you don't scour the fine print you will miss something important and the restaurant may deny you. Restaurants stop honoring the certs frequently and I get the distinct impression that they get screwed too.

I used Restaurant.com certificates for several years, until the participating restaurants started adding ridiculous requirements, like "Redeemed Mon-Thurs only, 4 diners and $100 minimum purchase" - for a $25 certificate that cost me $10. I ended up only getting 15% off, worse deal than a coupon.
A lot of restaurants started dropping out and going to Groupon. Every time they did, my certificates were converted to gift cards by the company. Finally I ended up with over $400 in cards and no where to use them.
Recently the site added a new tab to their menu, called "Specials by Restaurant.com" that offered products and event tickets.
When I tried by some tickets using a Restaurant.com gift card at the checkout, I was told my gift cards weren't any good there. "Specials by Restaurant.com, sitting under the Restaurant.com web site was a "sister site" and the products and tickets could only be purchased by credit card.

They continually ignored me when I asked why the check out included Gift Cards, especially when Specials didn't offer gift cards, though they claim it does.
Restaurant.com is a cheap shadow of Groupon and the many other deal sites.

Restaurant.com sells various gift certificates to various restaurants so the buyer gets a discount or viewed in another way greater purchasing power.

Unfortunately there are many instances that the restaurant certificates advertised on their website either don't do business with Restaurant.com or no longer do business with the company.

This becomes an inconvenience for the buyer of the certificates when the arrive at the establishment because of the certificates they purchased and are told it is not valid.

I was given a GC for Restaurant.com but the instructions on the back tell me to log in to www.theidealmeal.com. When I try to do that, the website is not available. When I called the customer service number on the back of the card, I get a busy signal - then a definite hang up.

This GC/certificate code is only good for theidealmeal.com - you can't redeem it on restaurant.com -- so, I guess it is absolutely worthless.

Why are these cards out there and why doesn't restaurant.com do something to let people know they can use the value on the restaurant.com website instead?

I am a restaurant owner in Rome, GA and a customer came into my restaurant today with a coupon from Restaurant.com that read $25 certificate with purchase of $50. We NEVER Signed up with this company or agreed to offer this type of promotion.

This is very bad for business when a customer thinks they have a coupon that we do not honor. They get upset with us and it's not our fault. Restaurant.com is using our restaurant information fraudulently.

Someone needs to contact this company that they cannot use our information or any other restaurant's information to offer discounts if the restaurant hasn't agreed to it.

Don't use this service, they are selling gift cards that are not working. I have purchased a $100 gift card and invited my girlfriend on a date. We arrived at the restaurant, ordered some food and enjoyed the evening. But when we finished our meal and I provided them my gift card they said that they don't accept gift cads! I told them that I have purchased it from www.restaurant.com and they said that they don't know anything about that. Truly a scam!

I have purchased a coupon from www.restaurant.com and it seemed like a great deal, but it was too good to be true! So I invited my girlfriend to a restaurant and she was very excited about that. The restaurant I picked was extremely expensive but I had my coupon. So, we arrived, ordered some meals and drinks. That was a wonderful evening and we spent a great time together, until it was time to pay. Coupon did not work and restaurant stuff told they had no idea about any coupons. Then I asked for a manager, he was very polite and apologized. But unfortunately I had to pay the full price. Avoid this site at all costs, they are selling fake coupons!