Screen Shot 2015-05-05 at 9.56.11 AM
Not actually the official Mel’s Market site.

[FOLLOW-UP: Exclusive: Thousands of rogue restaurant websites diverting customers to OrderAhead deliveries]

Nikos Gyros made headlines in Seattle last week after the Greek restaurant complained that a San Francisco-based food delivery startup, OrderAhead, was operating a website in the restaurant’s name and offering food deliveries without its permission.

As it turns out, they’re far from the only restaurant in this situation.

v5HeXOY1_400x400The owners of Mel’s Market in Seattle are also complaining about a website that they say is impersonating their business and sending people to OrderAhead — a product of the Y Combinator startup accelerator with a roster of high-profile Silicon Valley investors.

When users visit melsmarket.net, they’ll be redirected to the business’s page on OrderAhead, which includes a menu, description of the business and photographs of the food available to order.

The news about the rogue Mel’s Market site was first reported by KIRO-TV in Seattle. But further digging by GeekWire reveals a much broader pattern involving additional restaurants.

Here’s what we found: The rogue sites for both Nikos and Mel’s were registered to one Rosario Garnett. According to the WHOIS records for both domains, Garnett is supposed to be based in Staunton, Virginia, a small town that’s less than an hour west of Charlottesville.

There’s one catch: the address provided in the records doesn’t exist. Not only that, but the phone number listed connects to a fax machine.

Screen Shot 2015-05-05 at 10.08.30 AMGarnett has also registered hundreds of domains, including those for other businesses, including Saigon Kitchen in San Jose, California and Stuft Pizza in Santa Clara, Calif. In both cases, those domains host a white label version of OrderAhead’s platform for the restaurants. It’s not clear if the websites are authorized by those restaurants or not, and our efforts to reach managers at the eateries were not successful before deadline.

Complaints about unauthorized websites seem to follow OrderAhead around. Court Street Grocers, a Brooklyn-based company that runs three locations in New York, complained about a white label OrderAhead page that was set up without their permission at courtstreetgrocerssandwichshop.com.

While the page has since been taken down, WHOIS records show that the domain is also registered to Garnett.

Screen Shot 2015-05-05 at 10.07.17 AMThere’s a common thread among the websites: all of them were registered with domain names that imply they might be the official domain for the restaurant in question, even though in reality, there’s no connection between the business and the website.

By and large, they run a “white label” version of OrderAhead’s service, provide background about the business, and act like an official portal for requesting delivery from the restaurant.

It’s unclear if the websites were created by OrderAhead, or if someone else is running the pages without authorization. (Garnett didn’t respond to a request for comment sent to the listed email address on the WHOIS records.)

When asked on Twitter how the delivery system works with restaurants that don’t offer the service themselves, OrderAhead had this to say: “We provide delivery service for many restaurants who don’t deliver on their own. Hope that clarifies things! :)”

https://twitter.com/OrderAhead/status/594735004342681600

The company didn’t respond to follow-up tweets about its delivery policies, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from GeekWire.

To support its delivery business, OrderAhead charges a markup on restaurants’ prices, in addition to a delivery fee. That could prove problematic for restaurant owners who are facing customers confused about prices as a result of their unauthorized web presence. Not only that, but it’s also possible that customers could have a bad experience with OrderAhead delivery and blame that on the restaurant, even when they weren’t at fault.

OrderAhead has picked up a total of $10.5 million in funding from some major names in the tech industry. The Y Combinator startup’s investors include Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and Ignition Partners.

We’ll update this post as we hear back from the restaurants and companies involved.

[FOLLOW-UP: Exclusive: Thousands of rogue restaurant websites diverting customers to OrderAhead deliveries]

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