I have been ordering from Restaurant.com for the past several months and have enjoyed the savings at various local restaurants. For the recent holiday, however, I ordered 20 general gift certificates from this company and it has been a disaster ever since. When one of the recipients printed the certificate for a specific restaurant listed on restaurant.com's website and went to use it, the restaurant told them they no longer participated in the program. I have attempted many times through email to restaurant.com to resolve the issue but the person who responded to my numerous emails is incapable or unwilling to understand and rectify the problem. Her last response was that the certificate had been used but when I asked her to give me the name of the restaurant it was used at, she decided not to respond. They have lost a frequent customer as I will never deal with them again. In addition, I will caution everyone I know not to deal with them.

hi,
I bought 4 gift certificates worth 25$ each at restaurant.com valid only online through mrsfields.com. It was on a sunday, so I couldn't inquire either of them (restaurant.com or mrsfields.com) about the expiry and the minimum order. I came to know about the fraud after I bought the mrsfilds.com certificates that I need to purchase a minimum of 75 dollars (excluding shipping charges) and can use only one coupon for redemption at checkout. so, I need to pay 50 dollars from my pocket everytime I make a purchase. Buyers, be aware.
GS.

I am writing about restaurant.com and the scam they are doing to custmers who purchase gift certicates on their site. It is unethical, and they are doing it for ecomomic gain without your consent.
When you purchase a gift certificate, you are unwillingly letting them sign you up for a company called Shopping Essentials which bills your credit card for $14.95 per month. Restaurant.com has over 3, 000, 000 visits per month and about 5% of people purchase the gift certificate. If 150, 000 gift certificates are sold per month and they are billing $14.95 per month, it works out to $2, 242, 500 per month. Thats a huge number and they are doing it without your knowlege. I bought my gift certificate in May of 2008 and my first bill for Shopping Esstentials was July 2008. Apparently they wait a month so you forget that you purchased it over the internet and dont link it to them. As a restaurant consumer, I am appalled that a company would steal money from me in this nature. As a restaurant owner, I would not allow my reputation in the community be destroyed because some company is scamming my customers. Its not the restaurants fault, they DO NOT receive any money and are unaware its happening. They are legitimate, and using the program correctly. Restaurant.com should be ashamed of themselves for scamming unsuspecting people from their hard earned money, and also risking the restaurants reputation by cross selling products customers are not seeking. I hope the restaurant owners out there are reading this because you are unwillingly scamming your customers without your consent. Pass this on to restaurants. I am.

I ordered 6 certificates thru this web site for our trip to South Texas. We were able to use 1 of them. When I bought them I had no idea that we could only use 1 per month and that we had to spend $150.00 to use the $75.00 certificate. This I must say is a huge rip off and I have learned my lesson.

As far as the other 4 I bought we tried to use 1 of them tonight at a restaurant called Bikini's, the General Manager Greg Smith told me that these were fraudulent, That Bikini's DID NOT authorize the release of these certificates. Needless to say I was taken back. What a huge rip off!

In July 2007, I signed up for a coupon on restaurant.com to a restaurant near where I work. In JANUARY, Shopping Essentials Plus (an on-line shopping site of some kind) began charging my credit card for some type of membership fee for some type of services I never knew about and never requested. I traced the charges back to restaurant.com, but they claimed I must have signed up for Shopping Essentials Plus when I filled out an on-line questionnaire on their site.

I went back and reviewed restaurant.com's terms and conditions of use, and it states nothing about giving your credit card information to Shopping Essentials Plus, which is exactly what they did, without permission. Restaurant.com claimed no responsibility and simply referred me to Shopping Essentials Plus.

When I called Shopping Essentials Plus, I have to say, they were very nice. The lady I spoke to, Kanika, was apologetic and said she would credit the the membership charges back to my card. Restaurant.com was clearly not apologetic at all.