Ordering food online for delivery was somewhat popular prior to the pandemic, but really took off during the pandemic when people wanted restaurant food without having to go to a restaurant.  Many restaurants have taken advantage of this interest and set up websites to facilitate ordering food deliveries and companies such as DoorDash and GrubHub also take online orders for food deliveries from multiple restaurants.  As could be expected scammers also are getting into the food delivery business although it would be more accurate to say that they got in the business of taking your online orders for food delivery, but deliver nothing except charges on your credit card.

Scammers create websites for phony delivery services using names such as “Order Hero” and “Order Ventures” or they mimic websites of legitimate restaurants or delivery services and through manipulating algorithms used by search engines to rank websites may appear at the top of a Google Chrome or other search engine search.  Trust me, you can’t trust anyone.

TIPS

When you order online food from either a restaurant or a delivery service it is important to confirm that you are actually ordering from a legitimate restaurant or delivery service.  Take the time to confirm the URL before placing your order and don’t trust a search engine search to be reliable merely because a website appears high on your search.  An easy way to confirm that you have the correct URL is to call the restaurant or delivery service to make sure that you are using the correct URL.

As I often remind you, don’t use your debit card for anything other than an ATM card.  Only use your credit card for your financial transactions because the protection you have from liability for fraudulent charges is much greater when using your credit card than it is when using your debit card.