LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A class action lawsuit has been filed against the online delivery platform Uber Eats for fraud, conversion, defamation, civil RICO, racketeering, and negligence.
The lawsuit was filed in Clark County on Wednesday by Baby Stacks Café, Manizza's Pizza, Esther's Kitchen, and Gaetano's Ristorante. The restaurants claim that they are not on the Uber Eats platform and that other people pretended to be them on the platform and delivered lower-quality food to potential customers.
"We think Uber needs to make up for the real harm they have caused in our community and to our neighbors," said Kimball Jones, an attorney at Bighorn Law who is representing the restaurants.
According to an 18-page complaint, Uber Eats, "allowed for any individual to claim to be a restaurant in Nevada, without requiring reasonable authentication from the requesting party."
The restaurants state since Uber did not authenticate the requesting parties, it allowed unknown individuals to siphon business for themselves using the goodwill created by the actual business owners.
The lawsuit alleges that Uber knew the real restaurants were not utilizing the online delivery platform and used the "imposter restaurants" for its own financial benefit.
"Uber itself was benefiting to the tune of 30% of all of these fraudulent transactions," Jones said.
According to the complaint, the real restaurants "suffered damage to their reputation and brand as the impostor’s food was far inferior than the food and service with the Plaintiffs and Class provided."
"They are all victims of having their identities stolen and their reputation tarnished," Jones said.
Jones believes that there could be roughly 1,000 restaurants that were victimized. The lawsuit states the restaurants are entitled to $15,000 in damages.
Uber Eats shared the following statement with Channel 13.
"Small businesses are the backbone of Uber Eats and the conduct here is completely unacceptable to us, our customers, and most importantly the impacted restaurants. Impersonating any restaurant is a clear violation of our terms and policies, we've removed these imposters from our platform. We’ve also temporarily paused onboarding any new virtual restaurants while we carry out a review of all restaurants on Uber Eats in Las Vegas, and any imposter restaurants we discover will immediately be taken off the app."
If you believe you have been victimized, you can reach out to Bighorn Law at (702) 333-1111.
