Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced on Nov. 21 a settlement with online food delivery marketplace, Grubhub. The Office of the Attorney General’s investigation and subsequent settlement was focused on the pricing and disclosures to consumers as provided on Grubhub’s platform which uncovered that consumers were sometimes charged higher prices for the items they ordered than they would be if they ordered from the restaurant directly. As part of this agreement, Grubhub will provide a total of $125,000 in donations to a number of food banks.

“Online food delivery platforms can be very convenient, but consumers deserve transparency so they can make informed decisions about whether to place an order. I’m pleased that Grubhub agreed to make their pricing more straightforward,” said Attorney General Shapiro. “This is another step towards delivering a marketplace that is more fair for restaurants and consumers — and I call on all food-delivery platform companies to provide this same transparency as soon as possible.”

At the request of Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Grubhub is going to add additional disclosures on their app and website that the prices on the platform may be higher than in the restaurant. These price disclosures are going to be added by Grubhub to their menu pages and their check out page for visibility.

Further investigation into Grubhub’s platform also learned that Grubhub has been using routing numbers, microsites – separate websites that house the restaurant’s menu – and undisclosed partnerships with third-party websites such as Yelp or menupages.com. This misrepresentation concealed Grubhub’s true role in publishing restaurant information and in turn undermined consumers’ ability to shop around or compare prices. A consumer calling a Grubhub routing phone number may want to order from a restaurant directly and may have believed that they were calling the restaurant directly, but instead, the consumer would reach a Grubhub customer service representative and may have paid higher prices along with Grubhub’s additional fees.