Applebee’s Lawsuit Claims Service Fee is ‘Carefully Concealed’ in Online Delivery Receipts

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Applebee’s has been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit over an automatic, “carefully concealed” service fee the restaurant allegedly charges for online delivery orders.

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The 21-page Applebee’s lawsuit contends that the service fee causes customers who order through the restaurant’s website or app to uniformly pay a higher price for their food than what’s advertised on the menu. The case argues that the “strategic placement” of the service fee within the other fees charged in the ordering process means that it is “unlikely to be discovered or understood by reasonable consumers.”

Per the case, the 11-percent Applebee’s service fee is added to a customer’s bill separately from the delivery charge and applicable taxes, and is not conspicuously disclosed at any point during the online ordering process.

It’s only on the final page of the online ordering process that a breakdown of the charges added to a customer’s order appears, the complaint says. Consumers must click on a “miniscule icon” beside the text “Service Fee” in order to learn what the charge is, though Applebee’s “still does not explain the nature of the Service Fee, or what ‘services’” the charge is meant to cover, the service fee lawsuit argues.

Further, the filing says that because the Applebee’s service fee amounts to 11 percent of the sum of the subtotal and taxes for a customer’s order, they are “unlikely to notice the order total as being so abnormally high” such that it would warrant an investigation into the charge.

Once a customer places their order online, Applebee’s “becomes even less transparent,” as online delivery fees are no longer itemized once an order is submitted and are instead lumped into a “Custom Fee,” the complaint shares.

“This intentionally hides the existence of the Service Fee from consumers, by lumping it together with delivery charges and delivery surcharges,” the suit says. “Because the Service Fee disappears once an order is completed, reasonable consumers are unaware they were ever charged the fee at all.”

Although Applebee’s operates on a franchise model, defendants Dine Brands Global and Applebee’s Restaurants, LLC maintain control over the online delivery order process, and intentionally designed the process to hide or obscure the service fee, the lawsuit claims.

The Applebee’s service fee lawsuit looks to cover all individuals in the United States who placed a delivery order on the Applebee’s website or app within the relevant statute of limitations period.

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