A GRUBHUB charge on your card: an order, the Grubhub+ membership, or a hold

On the state cards of Delaware, a Grubhub order shows up as GRUBHUB with the restaurant’s name run straight on after it and nothing in between, such as GRUBHUBCHICKFILA or GRUBHUBWAWA. Of 585 lines that carry the word, 514 are written that way, and none of the 514 is longer than 21 characters, so a long name is cut off.³ The line names the restaurant, not the app, so the card statement is where to start and the order receipt is where to finish.

What the state’s card data shows

The State of Delaware publishes every purchase its employees make on state cards. Its data has 585 lines with GRUBHUB in the name, from 30 July 2014 to 21 August 2026.³ By form:

These are work cards, so the sizes are not those of a family dinner, and the data does not say who ate what. Three things can still be counted. The name after the word is the restaurant’s, cut at 21 characters, so a restaurant you cannot quite read from the line may still be one you remember. The lines are not spread out: 384 of the 585 are from 2021, and the data does not say why. And nine lines are credits. Seven of them are on one day, 7 May 2020, all from GRUBHUBAPPLEBEESGRILL, from 3.99 to 6.99. The other two are a full reversal of an earlier charge:³

• GRUBHUBWAWA: 111.59 charged twice on 20 January 2021, and one credit of 111.59 on 23 January. One of the two charges is left.
• GRUBHUBLAHACIENDA: 524.62 charged on 19 March 2021, a credit of 524.62 on 23 March, and 524.62 charged again on 24 March. One charge is left, and it is the largest amount in the whole set.

We do not know the reason for either, and a charge, a credit and a charge again is not evidence of a mistake: an order can be put in again, a hold can be released, a card can be re-run. What it does show is that a Grubhub order can appear on a statement more than once, and that the line is the same each time.

What Grubhub’s own terms say

Grubhub’s terms of use say that if you pay with a credit card, Grubhub “may seek pre-authorization” of the card before the purchase, to check that it is valid and has credit available, and that for certain transactions “the subtotals shown at checkout are estimates that may be higher or lower than the total amount due”, with the right to charge the final price after checkout, including taxes.¹ The same page says that a gift card alone cannot complete a checkout: another form of payment is required “even if this payment method is not charged”.¹ So a card that sits on the account for a gift-card order can show up in a bank’s pending list. The terms do not say that it will, or for how long.

The membership is a separate document. Grubhub’s Grubhub+ terms say it is an automatically renewing membership; the monthly cycle recurs on the date of the first purchase, including the day a free trial turns into a paid month; it can be cancelled in the app or on the site “up to 24 hours prior to the next scheduled payment”, which on their example means by 11:59:59 PM Eastern on the day before; and a member is not eligible for a refund of a Grubhub+ charge “unless otherwise determined by Grubhub in its sole discretion”.² A dispute about an unauthorized Grubhub+ charge has to reach Grubhub within 60 days of the charge, and after that, the terms say, the right is waived.² That is a term of Grubhub’s contract and “subject to applicable laws”; it does not replace the card company’s rule.

The free Grubhub+ that comes with an Amazon Prime membership is, in the terms, “complimentary”, and “will not automatically convert” into a paid membership.² That is why the posts below matter.

What cardholders say they found

These are people’s own accounts on Reddit, not our findings, and we have not heard Grubhub’s side. In the threads we read, Grubhub’s account answered some of the posts with a message to write to its help form.⁴

• A membership they did not know they had. A poster in November 2020 found, on a card they rarely use, a monthly Grubhub+ charge of 10.81 for six months, signed up while ordering a pizza in May. They write that Grubhub’s support told them to dispute with the bank, which could cover only two months of charges. Commenters over the following years describe the same thing.⁴
• The free membership that is billed. Two posters, in February and September 2025, write that they joined the Amazon Prime offer, were then charged every month, and were told by Grubhub that it could see no such charge; a commenter in the second thread says the bank advised a fraud chargeback and sent a new card. Later commenters, the last on 31 August 2026, say it is happening to them too.⁴ We have no way to tell, from these threads, who is charging these cardholders or whether it is the membership at all.
• A small charge a day after an order. A poster in February 2026 writes of an unlabelled 0.49 charge almost 24 hours after a Panda Express order, which support first called a “tax adjustment” and then tied to that order. They say it did not show in the app.⁴
• The order that was charged twice. A poster in March 2025 writes that they changed an order after placing it, the restaurant received it twice, one was cancelled, and the card was charged for both anyway; support, by their account, would not refund after 48 hours and offered four vouchers of 10, and the poster says they then disputed the charge with the card company within minutes.⁴

The money the FTC says was locked, and what was paid back

In December 2024 the Federal Trade Commission and the Illinois Attorney General filed a complaint, with a settlement, against Grubhub. Among other things it says that Grubhub “regularly ‘blocks’ diners’ accounts who have large balances of gift card funds without warning”, with no meaningful way to contest the block, and that “in one month alone, 97% of locked accounts were never unlocked”. It also says that Grubhub’s Grubhub+ signup was simple while “numerous roadblocks” stood in the way of cancelling.⁵ These are the FTC’s allegations as it wrote them in its announcement. The settlement requires Grubhub to tell consumers when an account is blocked, give them a way to appeal, provide a simple Grubhub+ cancellation and remind subscribers at least once a year; the monetary judgment of $140 million is partly suspended, and Grubhub pays $25 million.⁵

In August 2026 the FTC announced that it was sending 640,038 payments, more than $23.8 million in all, to Grubhub drivers and diners, naming among the grounds “blocking diners from their accounts, preventing them from redeeming gift cards”.⁵ Checks are to be cashed within 90 days and PayPal payments accepted within 30; the FTC says it never asks for money or account details to give one out.⁵ On Reddit, a poster and a commenter from 2022 to 2023 describe gift-card balances of about 100 and about 300 dollars frozen with their accounts, and Grubhub’s account answering “send us a message”.⁴

How to find out which one it is, and get the money back

1. Read the line GRUBHUB then letters with no space is a restaurant, and the letters stop at 21. A school name, SEAMLESS or CAMPUS DINING after the word is not a restaurant line. YELP-GRUBHUB is an order made through Yelp.
2. Find the order Check your order history and the email address you used for confirmations for an order from that restaurant on or just before the date. A restaurant name can be shared by a chain, so check the address as well. If someone else in your home orders on your card, ask them first.
3. If the same amount comes every month Look for a Grubhub+ membership in the account, under the Grubhub+ item of the menu, on the app and on the site, and cancel at least 24 hours before the next date. Grubhub’s number for questions about a Grubhub+ charge, in its terms, is 1 (877) 585-1085.² If you have the Amazon Prime benefit and a charge you did not expect, the terms say the benefit is free; keep the statement showing the charge and tell the card company.
4. If it is a small extra or a second charge Write down the date and the amount, and ask Grubhub which order it belongs to. The terms say the final price can differ from the checkout total, so an answer of “taxes” is possible; whether it applies is for them to show on an order.¹
5. If no order matches Send your card company a written dispute with your name, address, account number and what the mistake is, so that it reaches them within 60 days after the first bill with the error was sent. The company must acknowledge it in writing within 30 days and resolve it within 90, and you may withhold the disputed amount while it does.⁶ A debit card has its own rules, which are the bank’s to explain.
6. If your account was blocked with a gift card balance Ask Grubhub in writing about the block and the appeal, which the settlement says it must offer, and keep the date. The FTC has a page for the payments (Grubhub Refunds) and says the refund administrator takes questions on 1-888-446-4992.⁵

Is this a scam?

The name is real: public bodies in one state have paid it on 585 lines across twelve years.³ That does not tell you a charge on your card is yours. A line that does not match any order, or a membership you did not take, is a reason to ask the card company, not a reason to keep paying.

Why this page is on a site about held money

This site records payment companies that hold back money that belongs to someone else. A food-delivery company is not one of them, and has no record here; the gift-card allegations above are the part of its story that is about money that was held, and they are the FTC’s. This page is for the person who found a line they could not place. A delivery on another app is on the page for DOORDASH, a ride is UBER *TRIP, and a grocery order is IC* INSTACART. Other lines are in the table of statement names.

Sources

1. Grubhub, Terms of Use, the parts on payment: pre-authorization of a credit card; checkout subtotals as estimates and the final price after checkout; a gift card alone cannot complete checkout. grubhub.com. Read on 23 October 2026.
2. Grubhub, Grubhub+ Membership Terms of Use: automatic renewal; the billing cycle; cancelling up to 24 hours before the next payment and the steps in the app and on the site; no refund unless Grubhub decides otherwise; the 60-day period for a dispute about an unauthorized Grubhub+ charge; the contact number; the free membership for Amazon Prime members, which does not convert into a paid one. grubhub.com. Read on 23 October 2026.
3. State of Delaware Open Data, State Employee Credit Card Transactions, fields "merchant", "trans_dt" and "merchandise_amt". Lines whose name contains GRUBHUB. Queried and counted on 23 October 2026: 585 lines, of which 573 begin with GRUBHUB, 11 with YELP-GRUBHUB and 1 with AMZ*.
4. Reddit posts, each the poster’s own account: Grubhub+ billed without knowing, 2020 (reddit.com); charges for the Amazon Prime membership, 2025 (reddit.com and reddit.com); a 0.49 “tax adjustment”, 2026 (reddit.com); an order charged twice after a change, 2025 (reddit.com); frozen gift-card balances, 2022 and 2023 (reddit.com and reddit.com). All in r/grubhub, read in a web browser on 23 October 2026; Reddit answers the web archive with a bot-check page, so no archived copies could be made.
5. Federal Trade Commission: the December 2024 announcement of the complaint and the settlement with Grubhub, with the Illinois Attorney General (ftc.gov); the August 2026 announcement of 640,038 payments (ftc.gov); and the refunds page. Read on 23 October 2026.
6. Federal Trade Commission, “Disputing Credit Card Charges”: how to write to the card issuer, the 60-day, 30-day and 90-day periods, and withholding the disputed amount. consumer.ftc.gov. Read on 23 October 2026.