Restaurants.com Sucks Ass

The FA (of all people) pointed out to me that my corner bar/Mexican restaurant had coupons available on restaurants.com. The coupons at the time were a very good deal. You had to pay $1 for a $25 coupon. The coupon had stipulations that you had to spend $35 on food (no drinks) and they’d tack on 18% for gratuity. I bought two of them and ended up spending $20 each time after the $25 was taken off. No big deal, three of us ate very well for $20, including tip. But then a month later I got a bill on my credit card from Shopessplus.com. After doing a little research (complaintsboard.com) I found out that after ordering the coupons from restaurants.com they had in turn enrolled me in a monthly membership at Shopessplus.com. at a monthly rate of $19.95.

Say what?!

If this happens to you, call 1-888-243-6185, enter “#” when they ask for a membership number, and they will cancel your membership for you. I just did it with no problems. Although I do have to call back; the whole process went way too smoothly and I forgot to ask that they take the charges off my card.

And, to add insult to injury, I received the following email:

This email confirms that your cancel request for your membership in Shopping Essentials+ has been processed on 10/21/2009. Your cancellation confirmation number is 124333378-20091021. You do not need to do anything else to cancel your membership.

We thank you for your interest in Shopping Essentials+, and we hope your membership experience was a positive one.

If you have any comments or suggestions that might help us better serve our members, please feel free to email us at membersavings@shoppingessentialsplus.com.

Sincerely,

Shopping Essentials+
Member Savings

Nothing like a “We took you for $20 and you liked it!” email.

And my email to restaurants.com after I got the shopessplus.com membership canceled:

I received charges from shopessplus.com, after doing research I found out it came from a purchase on your website. Please delete all my personal info from your files. If I receive another email/charge related to my business with your company I will look into pressing charges.

B to the…

To which I got the response:

Hello,

At the end of your order there is an offer to receive $10 cash back for completing a survey and becoming a member with Shopping Essentials. For completing this survey you have agreed to let Restaurant.com give Shopping Essentials your information, including the credit card information that was used in your order. If you do not wish to continue your membership with Shopping Essentials after your 30-day free trial, you will need to contact Shopping Essentials before you get charged the $14.95 monthly membership fee, which will start 30 days after the completion of your survey, which is also the same date as your Restaurant.com order. Shopping Essentials number is 888-999-0564.




Sincerely,

Robert Guercio
Customer Support
Restaurant.com
Tel. 800.979.8985
Fax 847.506.9685
Email rguercio@restaurant.com
www.restaurant.com

Fuck you, dude. I never do online surveys. $10 cash back on my $2 purchase? Where’s my $8? Fuck you, dude.