Who is suffering from fake orders for takeout meals?

Although merchants have gained sales and good reviews through takeaway meal scams, many merchants have calculated that all the money has been earned by fake orders. So, who is the biggest beneficiary of takeaway meal scams?

If you eat takeout and dine for free, can you still get a rebate if you don’t get beaten?

Recently, many posts recommending takeout "free meal" apps have emerged on social platforms. These apps are full of large rebate activities such as "20 off for purchases over 25" and "10 off for purchases over 12", and even free takeout meals of 10 off for purchases over 10, which have captured the hearts of many consumers.

The so-called takeaway free meal refers to someone specifically organizing consumers to order takeout, and letting them place orders at designated restaurants through mini-programs. After eating the takeout, they can give the store positive messages and five-star reviews to get high cash back.

Consumers get a "free lunch"; merchants win good reviews and sales; and the companies that organize fake orders make the difference. However, while it may seem like a three-pronged approach, the people involved have their own reasons. So who is the biggest beneficiary of takeaway meal scams?

01 If you dine and dine for free, can you still get a rebate if you don’t get beaten?

"In Beijing, you can have a good takeout meal for only 0-10 yuan," a user shared on a social platform. He specializes in eating free takeout meals and has registered accounts on more than a dozen takeout platforms. Before ordering takeout every time, he compares which platform offers the highest rebate and then orders from that platform.

Lujiu Business Review entered a takeout free meal group. The group owner would occasionally post takeout tasting activities in the group, using the gimmick of "tasting subsidies of up to 20 yuan, limited places, first come first served" to attract group members to grab orders. After clicking on the Meal Love mini program, the page would show that after receiving the coupon, an order could be placed on Meituan/Ele.me, which would be superimposed with the free meal subsidy and applicable to all stores.

In addition, Lujiu Business Review clicked on Xiaocan, another popular free meal app, and found that many businesses have launched high cashback activities on the free meal page. For example, a spicy hot pot restaurant showed a 17 yuan cashback for every 25 yuan spent, and no reviews were required.

Overall, merchants’ activities have set a time for grabbing orders and have quantity restrictions. The remaining quantity will be displayed on the page. For random browsing, the remaining number of free meals in each store is in the single digits, and the varieties range from staple foods to desserts, drinks, etc.

According to the introduction, the entire rebate operation process is not complicated. It is mainly divided into registering for activities, placing orders, submitting information, and waiting for approval before the rebate is credited to the account.

It’s just that some of the terms are quite numerous, and some merchants have special requirements. If you don’t make notes as required, it will be clearly stated that you will not receive a rebate; some merchants will pay once a week.

Lujiu Business Review In the above-mentioned takeout meal group, we often see users reporting that their orders have not been processed for almost 10 days.

In addition, there are occasional bugs in the free dining platform program, which makes consumers nervous. One netizen said that when he submitted the order yesterday, it showed that the order was under review, but when he checked again today, it showed that the submission was not successful. "I can only ask their staff to solve it."

Therefore, there is a chain of contempt among these takeout meal delivery platforms, and those that offer fast rebates and a wide variety of food are more popular.

It is worth mentioning that the platform cannot fully cover the stores that consumers want to eat at, but because the prices are too low, many consumers will still buy them “to make up the numbers” and can only reluctantly accept quality issues.

"The Daifuku that was delivered was broken, and I was still asked to take appetizing photos," Comet said. However, in order to get the rebate red envelope, he still added filters to the photos and gave the merchant a five-star rating.

02Why is there so much wool to be taken?

In fact, the phenomenon of "brushing orders" on food delivery platforms has always existed. Through exchanges with many merchants, Lujiu Business Review found that in order to play with the traffic mechanism of food delivery platforms, brushing orders is a must.

Xiao Zhang, who runs a snack bar near the school, said that in the early stage of takeout delivery, you must fake orders, otherwise there will be no traffic. When faking orders, "you don't even have to send out the food, just tell the deliveryman, (they) don't have to deliver the food, and there are delivery fees. I wish I could encounter fake orders every day."

Manager Zhao, a sales manager at a catering takeaway market service provider in Wuhan, said that the monitoring of takeaway platforms is becoming more and more strict. Some consumer behaviors will be judged as fake orders by big data and will be punished. Starting from August 3, the platform has been very strict, especially for empty orders from other places.

As a form of false orders, takeout meals are a relatively safe approach. Although the cost of false orders is higher, the safety is relatively guaranteed. From the platform's perspective, it is just normal ordering, consumption and evaluation, with relatively low risks.

Although merchants have gained sales and good reviews through takeout meals, many of them did the math for Lujiu Business Review and said that all the money was earned by those who faked the orders.

Zhang Tao joined a brand hotpot restaurant last year. He told Lujiu Business Review that the merchant not only provides free takeout, but also requires an additional 15 yuan per order to get good reviews, which is equivalent to treating people to a meal for free and then paying them to write good reviews.

He said that takeout meals can indeed bring more traffic. There are two types of store traffic, one is particularly high evaluation, and the other is high sales. Takeout is different from dine-in, and sales are the main factor.

"When ordering a takeaway meal, everyone's budget is basically around 20 yuan, and they just want to eat until they are full. So they are more casual when ordering takeaways, just scroll through the platform for a few pages and order if they like it. This results in the ranking being higher as soon as you swipe the order, making it easier to get orders."

“Before brushing orders, I could sell 60 to 70 orders a day on average. After brushing orders, I could easily sell more than 100 orders a day.” After tasting the sweetness of brushing orders, Zhang Tao joined the ranks of brushing orders and commissioned a third-party platform to release 10 takeout meals every day.

However, although the number of orders increased, no money was made. Zhang Tao did some calculations for Lujiu Business Review. If a set meal costs 35 yuan, plus cashback, rebates, delivery fees and other expenses, the total amount of orders placed per month is about 20,000 yuan, but it is basically a loss-making business, and all the money earned is taken away by the order-padding organization.

It is worth mentioning that some entrepreneurial projects released by self-media specifically introduce takeaway meals and earn the difference.

A person who specializes in fake takeout orders told Lujiu Business Review that Meituan charges 8 yuan per takeout order, and if a review is required, an additional 2 yuan will be added. It can be done in any city, and there are national city groups.

Manager Zhao said that they can not only provide takeaway meals, but also operate a takeaway shop. The original charge is 1,500 yuan per month, and the current promotional price is 988 yuan per month.

After figuring out the logic behind fake orders, Zhang Tao no longer cooperated with third-party companies. Instead, he went to stores within a 3-kilometer delivery radius around his store every day to communicate with the staff to place orders, and gave a preferential policy of returning 15 yuan for orders over 25 yuan, and gave a good review after eating.

"Everyone likes this kind of discount," said Zhang Tao. After skipping the organizers of the fake orders, the fake orders for takeout meals still have more advantages than disadvantages.

03 Is it illegal to eat and dine without paying for takeout?

The form of takeaway meal delivery seems to kill two birds with one stone, but is it illegal to obtain sales and good reviews by fake orders? Lujiu Business Review discussed this with professional lawyers.

Xu Chao, partner and lawyer at Shanghai Rongli Tianwen Law Firm, said that whether it is inflating sales or inflating positive reviews, these behaviors themselves are illegal.

From the perspective of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, such behavior violates the principle of good faith and recognized business ethics, objectively causing the platform's relevant data to lose authenticity and objectivity, directly affecting and undermining the credibility of the data system and evaluation system built by other competitors, thereby damaging the competitiveness of other competitors. Therefore, it constitutes an illegal act of unfair competition.

He added that from the perspective of the Consumer Protection Law, such behavior greatly increased sales and increased positive reviews by brushing orders, and used the false appearance created for publicity, which also caused chaos to the normal business order of society. It also constitutes a revocation of consumers' right to know, may cause damage to consumers' legitimate rights and interests, and is also suspected of false advertising.

Regarding service providers who specialize in fake order business, Xu Chao said that in current judicial practice, it is generally recognized that teams that professionally engage in fake orders are not only breaking the law, but also suspected of committing crimes. The specific suspected crime is "illegal business operation."

Article 225 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that the crime of illegal business operation refers to violating state regulations and engaging in any of the following illegal business activities, which disrupt the market order. If the circumstances are serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention, and shall be fined not less than one times but not more than five times the illegal gains; if the circumstances are particularly serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years and shall be fined not less than one times but not more than five times the illegal gains or have his property confiscated.

In fact, in sentencing the organizers of order-brushing, there are already precedents of criminal prosecution for serious order-brushing behaviors in judicial practice. In the case of (2023) Hu0101 Xingchu No. 160, sentenced by the Huangpu District People's Court of Shanghai in 2023, the court found that the defendant's order-brushing organizer violated national regulations and provided services such as publishing false information for profit through information networks, disrupting the market order, and the circumstances were particularly serious. His behavior constituted the crime of illegal business operation. The organizer of order-brushing was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of RMB 500,000 for the crime of illegal business operation. At the same time, the illegally obtained funds should be recovered and confiscated; the mobile phones and computers used in the crime should be confiscated.

As for consumers involved in the takeaway meal free-for-all industry chain, Xu Chao pointed out that we believe that if consumers are unaware of the order-padding behavior of operators and organizers, and have no subjective intention to place false orders, and are purely enjoying free consumption, this is not illegal.

If consumers form some kind of long-term connection or cooperation with operators or organizers of fake orders, and even obtain "commissions", then in terms of nature identification, it is not ruled out that they may be identified as helpers in organizing fake orders. It is no longer a simple consumer behavior, and the nature of their behavior has changed, and it is suspected of being illegal.

"The legal basis for this should overlap with the legal basis for the violation of laws by operators and organizers, and it only involves the identification of consumers."

04 Is it the platform’s fault?

According to descriptions from several food delivery merchants, although the platform does not force merchants to deliver free meals, it seems to condone this kind of "brushing orders" behavior.

Zhang Tao said that when the takeaway business was first launched, the business manager of the takeaway platform would ask for fake orders to activate the store, "which means that the customer is active and completes his own performance; if the takeaway business is launched and there are no orders for three days, it means that the store has failed."

Another store owner shared, "Meituan and Ele.me platforms have seen a 30 percent increase in merchants during the same period. New merchants are placing more than 100 orders for free meals a day, and customers are eating for free, which has affected their own store business."

So, does the platform condone the practice of false orders for takeout meals?

Lujiu Business Review learned from a food delivery platform that the platform provides merchants with a variety of marketing tools such as Dot Gold, Platinum, and Gold Signboards. At the same time, the platform also launched a free promotion diagnosis function in the merchant backend. Merchants can choose the marketing tools that suit them according to their own needs and the business optimization suggestions provided by the platform, so as to gain more exposure.

However, it should be emphasized that the exposure and order conversion of a merchant's store are not only related to the investment in marketing activities. Factors such as menu richness, peak business hours, and negative review response rate also affect the merchant's store score, which in turn affects the merchant's exposure and store conversion. We have mentioned this many times in our daily promotion to merchants, hoping that merchants will look at it objectively and use marketing tools reasonably.

Takeaway operations and marketing promotion activity design require a certain level of professionalism and threshold. In order to help merchants use marketing tools more reasonably, the platform has equipped professional business managers in different business districts to provide merchants with free one-on-one takeaway operation guidance. Merchants can reasonably plan marketing activities under the guidance of professionals.

"We encourage businesses to operate in compliance with regulations. Once the platform discovers businesses that violate the law by placing fake orders, it will take measures such as demotion, suspension, or even delisting. We will also work with public security agencies to file cases against illegal and gray market activities, ultimately creating a fair and competitive market environment for businesses and maintaining a healthy food delivery ecosystem."

In fact, food delivery platforms are indeed cracking down on fake orders. Manager Zhao said, "Although fake orders are relatively safe, if orders are always placed from the same IP address, they will eventually be detected."

The act of eating and drinking for free is not advisable. An industry insider said that this will destroy people's trust in the review system of food delivery platforms. "After eating so many free meals, I no longer dare to trust the sales and ratings of merchants," said a consumer who participated in the incident. Now, no matter which store I look at, I unconsciously think that the good reviews are fake and I dare not try them easily.

Author: Meiling

Source public account: Lujiu Business Review (ID: liujiucaijing69), the truth cannot be revealed, it can only be approached.