The FTC Just Sued Uber. Here's What It Means for Your Restaurant.

On April 21, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Uber, alleging the company charged consumers for its Uber One subscription without their consent, failed to deliver promised savings, and deliberately made cancellation difficult. This is not a minor regulatory skirmish. Uber One has 30 million members globally, and a significant share of those members are placing orders at your restaurant right now.

If consumer trust in Uber Eats takes a hit, your order volume takes a hit. Here is what happened, why it matters to your bottom line, and what you can do about it this week.

What the FTC Is Alleging Against Uber

The FTC's complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, lays out three core allegations. First, Uber promised consumers savings of $25 per month through Uber One without disclosing that the $9.99 monthly subscription cost was not factored into that calculation. Second, some consumers were enrolled in Uber One without their knowledge or consent. The complaint quotes one consumer who said they were being charged $9.99 per month despite never having an Uber account.

Third, and most damaging to consumer trust, Uber made cancellation a maze. According to the FTC, users trying to cancel Uber One could be forced to navigate as many as 23 screens and take up to 32 separate actions. If they tried to proceed, Uber would ask why they wanted to cancel, push them to pause instead, and present retention offers. Some users were told to contact customer support to cancel, but were given no way to reach them. Others say they were charged for another billing cycle after requesting cancellation.

Uber disputes the allegations. A spokesperson told Restaurant Dive that the majority of cancellations occur in-app and take 20 seconds or less, and that the company does not sign up or charge consumers without their consent. The case will be decided by the court. But the FTC does not file complaints without evidence, and the agency is seeking both an injunction and monetary relief.

The FTC's vote to authorize the complaint was 2-0-1, with one commissioner recused. This is not a close call internally.

Why Uber One Matters to Your Restaurant Revenue

Uber One is not a side product. As of Q4 2024, the subscription had 30 million members globally, growing roughly 60% year over year. By early 2023, 40% of all Uber Eats orders in the U.S. were coming from Uber One members. Uber's own data shows that Uber One members spend roughly four times the amount of non-members on a monthly basis and have 15% higher retention. These are your most valuable delivery customers.

When a federal agency publicly accuses a platform of charging people without consent and trapping them in subscriptions they cannot cancel, some of those 30 million members are going to cancel. Others are going to order less. Some will switch to DoorDash or Grubhub. A few will stop using delivery apps altogether. None of those outcomes are good for your Uber Eats order count.

There is also a broader trust problem. The FTC lawsuit follows a December 2024 settlement in which Grubhub paid $25 million over allegations it misled consumers about delivery costs. Instacart paid $60 million in a similar settlement. The pattern regulators are documenting, hidden fees, unauthorized charges, deceptive cancellation flows, is the same pattern that erodes consumer confidence in ordering food online. When consumers feel burned by a platform, they do not always distinguish between the platform and the restaurants on it.

The Money Problem You Already Have

The FTC's case is about consumer billing. But the same structural problem that targets the consumer side exists on the restaurant side too. Platforms make unilateral financial decisions, bury the details in payout reports, and make the dispute process difficult enough that most operators never bother.

When a customer reports a missing item on Uber Eats, the platform issues a refund and deducts the cost from your next payout. No phone call. No verification that the item was actually missing. No approval from you. You find out after the fact, buried in a payout summary most operators never read line by line. DoorDash and Grubhub operate the same way. The platforms call these error charges or adjustments. You call them money you earned and did not get paid.

Research from delivery analytics firm Craver found that roughly 3% of all delivery orders result in a refund request. On a restaurant doing 100 delivery orders a day, that is three refund claims every single day. At an average order value of $35, that is over $100 a day in potential deductions, or more than $36,000 a year. A meaningful share of those claims are fraudulent or incorrect. The platforms have fraud detection systems, but they are imperfect, and the burden of catching errors falls on you.

What to Do About It This Week

You cannot control what the FTC does or how Uber responds. You can control how well you are protecting the revenue you are already generating. Here is where to start.

• Pull your Uber Eats payout report this week and filter for adjustments and error charges. Most operators review delivery earnings monthly, which means errors compound for weeks. Log into your Uber Eats Merchant Portal, go to Payments, and look at the Adjustments column. If you see deductions you do not recognize, dispute them immediately. Uber Eats has a dispute window, and once it closes, the money is gone.

• Do the same for DoorDash and Grubhub. Each platform has its own payout structure and dispute process. DoorDash gives you a narrow window after an error charge is issued. Grubhub has its own timeline. If you are not checking all three weekly, you are leaving money on the table every single week.

• Start documenting every order. Bag labels, receipt check-offs, and order photos are your evidence when a customer claims an item was missing. Without documentation, you have no case. With a photo of a sealed, labeled bag, you have a strong one.

• Watch your Uber Eats order volume over the next 30 to 60 days. If the FTC lawsuit generates significant press coverage and consumer backlash, you may see a dip in Uber Eats orders. If that happens, it is worth evaluating whether you are maximizing your presence on DoorDash and Grubhub to offset any volume shift.

The FTC's lawsuit against Uber is a reminder that the delivery platforms you depend on are not operating in your interest. They are operating in their own interest. That is not a criticism, it is just the reality of the business relationship. Your job is to make sure you are getting paid for every order you fulfill, and that every unauthorized deduction gets disputed before the window closes.

Most operators do not have the time or the systems to track every deduction across three platforms and dispute them before the window closes. That is what Jelly does. It monitors your payouts across DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub, identifies unauthorized refunds and unpaid canceled orders, and disputes them on your behalf. The recovery rate is 91%. There are no contracts and there is a free trial. While the FTC works through the courts, your money is still walking out the door on every payout cycle.

The Bigger Picture for Delivery Platform Operators

The FTC's action against Uber is the third major enforcement move against a delivery platform in less than two years. Grubhub settled for $25 million in December 2024. Instacart paid $60 million. Now Uber is in federal court. The agency is not treating these as isolated incidents. It is building a case that the entire delivery platform industry has a structural problem with transparency and consumer consent.

For restaurant operators, the practical takeaway is this: the platforms you rely on for a significant share of your revenue are under increasing legal and regulatory pressure. That pressure may eventually produce better rules. It will not produce a check for the money already taken from your payouts. That part is on you.