Saying they are not loving it, a group of McDonald’s customers have filed a class action lawsuit, demanding the world’s largest food chain to pay up for an alleged “glitch” in the McDonald’s app that causes customers to double pay for orders, or to not receive promoted discounts for food ordered through the app.
On June 24, attorneys with the firms of Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman, of Chicago, and Federman & Sherwood, of Oklahoma City, filed suit against Chicago-based McDonald’s in Cook County Circuit Court.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of named plaintiff George Keritsis, identified as a resident of Florida.
Gary Klinger
| Milberg Coleman
The lawsuit asserts McDonald’s, while widely promoting the acceptance and use of its smartphone app for ordering food, has “poorly integrated” the app with its physical restaurants.
This has, in turn, left a large number of customers who have ordered food through the app forced to pay double for their food, when the physical store claims to have not received the order, for which the customer already paid using a payment card on file, through the app.
Further, the lawsuit asserts McDonald’s also declines to honor discounts customers believe they are receiving for certain food items ordered through the app.
And, the lawsuit claims, customers are often left “with no simple solution” to obtain refunds for their alleged overpayments, as the app “often fails to refund customers their money,” and restaurant managers allegedly are not authorized to issue refunds on the app.
“Even though this is an issue long known to McDonald’s, (their) website itself tells customers to appeal to their bank if they were double charged and the physical store will not refund their money,” the lawsuit says.
“… McDonald’s is and has been aware of the Glitch but has failed to remedy the problem or provide refunds to its customers who were overcharged or did not receive the discounts promised,” the complaint said.
According to the complaint, Keritsis was among the McDonald’s customers who were allegedly double charged.
The complaint said Keritsis placed an order through the McDonald’s app for a large order of French fries to be picked up at a McDonald’s restaurant in North Tarpon Springs, Florida.
According to the complaint, he paid $1.07 for the fries through the app using an American Express card. However, when he arrived to pick up the fries, he was told the store did not have record of his payment, and he was required to use a different credit card to complete the order.
However, the complaint said McDonald’s still charged his American Express card for the fries, as well.
On another occasion, the complaint said McDonald’s refused to process a 20% discount deal offered to customers ordering through the app.
The complaint said McDonald’s allegedly refused to refund the alleged overpayments.
The complaint alleged Keritsis and other customers suffer “loss of time” in addition to alleged overpayments, which are often small enough that “McDonald’s knew a customer would often not find worth the amount of time expended on it, giving McDonald’s undeserved additional revenue and profits.”
The complaint seeks to expand the action to include everyone in the U.S. who suffered overpayments and other anomalies when ordering through the McDonald’s app. It also seeks to add an additional subclass of Florida residents, under that state’s deceptive and unfair trade practices law.
The complaint includes counts under Illinois’ consumer fraud and deceptive trade practices laws, as well as counts of conversion, unjust enrichment, breach of contract, breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and others.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to award them “all forms of allowable damages,” including refunds of the alleged overpayments and punitive damages, plus attorney’s fees.
Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Gary M. Klinger, of the Milberg Coleman firm, and William B. Federman, of Federman & Sherwood.