Like the Darien woman who told police last week that she didn’t know how someone in Florida could have cashed a check against her bank account, a Darien man, the next day, told police he didn’t know how a $48.18 Grubhub delivery to someone in Westport was made using his credit card.
He told police on Wednesday, Oct. 23 (the day after the Darien woman’s report) that he’d never used or registered for Grubhub, a service which delivers food from area restaurants to your door. He only knew about the theft because he’d looked at the charges to his account.
The man called Grubhub, who told him the address where the delivery had been made.
In their announcement about the matter, Darien police said: “Grubhub stated they had more information about the delivery but could only disclose that information to law enforcement via a subpoena.”
Police didn’t say if they were getting that subpoena. The effort to get it, involving police paperwork, approval from a prosecutor and then approval from a judge, along with sending it to Grubhub, would likely cost more than $48.18.
EDITORIAL:
- It’s understandable that a business would want to keep customer information private, although keeping information private from the victim himself, about an order that he was charged for, when that victim didn’t even register an account from Grubhub, is certifiably insane.
- If this is a Grubhub policy, and not just some employee with wrong information, then that’s the kind of thing the state Attorney General’s Office should be interested in looking into.
- If Grubhub actually has this as a policy, it’s victimizing Connecticut residents. There should be a government response to that.
- If, for any reason, Grubhub is in safe legal territory here, the state Legislature should, by law, set up the easiest, smoothest possible way for police to file for a subpoena, for a prosecutor to quickly and easily approve it and for a judge to sign it. Call it the Grubhub Dept. in the state prosecutor’s office, with designated Grubhub Judges. State police could even be assigned to work on Grubhub cases. The company would find it convenient to be very cooperative, and the effort just might result in saving money for state residents.