Corporate Accountability Project | Class Action Watch | Filed January 2026
Sunday App, Inc. · Restaurant Tech · Class Action 2026
The Hidden Fee at the End of Your Restaurant Bill
Sunday App charges diners a mandatory “Platform Fee” they never agreed to, revealed only after customers have already committed to paying.
TL;DR
Sunday App, Inc. built a restaurant payment platform that deliberately hides a mandatory “Platform Fee” until the final moment of checkout, after diners have already scanned a QR code, navigated multiple screens, and entered their payment information. This is not a minor oversight; it is a calculated scheme to extract revenue from restaurant customers who have no real choice but to pay. Thousands of diners across California, Illinois, and nationwide have been overcharged, and the total harm runs into millions of dollars.
Diners deserve to know the true price of their meal before they commit. Demand transparency. Share this story.
Key Numbers
$5M+
Minimum damages threshold (federal jurisdiction)
100+
Minimum class members alleged by plaintiffs
$4.99
Fee charged to plaintiff Hoke on a $184 order
$0.69
Fee charged to plaintiff Shafer on a $39.95 order
0
Disclosures made before checkout begins
7
Counts of law alleged against Sunday App
Allegations Breakdown
Core Allegations
What Sunday App is accused of doing · 6 points
| 01 | Sunday App adds a mandatory “Platform Fee” to every restaurant transaction processed through its QR-code platform, without disclosing this fee before consumers begin the checkout process. | high |
| 02 | The fee is revealed only at the final step of a multi-step payment flow, after consumers have scanned a QR code, navigated multiple screens, and entered their payment and personal information. | high |
| 03 | Sunday’s payment interface displays a running total that implies the consumer will pay only for their food items plus government taxes, never alerting them to an additional mandatory charge. | high |
| 04 | The fee varies in amount based on the consumer’s subtotal rather than any fixed operating cost, demonstrating that it is an arbitrary profit-extraction charge rather than a legitimate platform expense. | high |
| 05 | Sunday does not explain what the Platform Fee funds, how it is calculated, or why it is mandatory, either during checkout or on post-purchase receipts sent to consumers. | med |
| 06 | The platform is endorsed or required by many restaurants, meaning consumers often have no practical alternative payment method available at the table, leaving them trapped by the fee once they have committed to the checkout flow. | high |
Profit Over People
How Sunday App prioritizes revenue extraction · 5 points
| 01 | Sunday exploits “consumer inertia,” the documented psychological tendency for people to complete transactions they have already invested time in, even when they discover an unexpected charge at the last moment. | high |
| 02 | On post-purchase receipts, Sunday buries the Platform Fee as a line item positioned after food items, taxes, and all other charges, minimizing the chance a consumer will notice it and question it. | med |
| 03 | The variable, percentage-linked nature of the fee means Sunday collects more money from larger bills, generating significantly more revenue from consumers with no corresponding increase in service or cost to Sunday. | high |
| 04 | Sunday advertises its platform to consumers as a faster, more convenient checkout experience, but this “convenience” conceals a mandatory cost that consumers would not knowingly accept. | med |
| 05 | The complaint estimates that across thousands of transactions nationwide, the undisclosed fees total in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, representing direct wealth extraction from restaurant diners. | high |
Economic Fallout
Financial harm to everyday diners · 4 points
| 01 | Plaintiff Hoke paid $4.99 in undisclosed fees on a $184 restaurant order in Los Angeles in December 2025. He states he would not have used Sunday’s platform had he known about the charge. | med |
| 02 | Plaintiff Shafer paid $0.69 in undisclosed fees on a $39.95 order in Chicago in December 2025. Like Hoke, she states she would have chosen a different payment method had the fee been disclosed upfront. | med |
| 03 | Because many consumers only discover the fee after completing their transaction, they have no practical recourse, no ability to cancel the payment or choose an alternative, compounding the financial harm. | high |
| 04 | Sunday’s undisclosed fee also distorts price competition: consumers cannot accurately compare Sunday’s true cost against other payment options because the real price is hidden until it is too late to act on that information. | med |
Corporate Accountability Failures
What Sunday App did not do · 5 points
| 01 | Despite clear FTC guidance from 2013 requiring that all material fee disclosures be made before consumers commit to a transaction, Sunday designed its checkout to withhold the Platform Fee until the final payment step. | high |
| 02 | Sunday has not amended its platform to clearly and prominently disclose the fee before checkout begins, despite regulatory focus on junk fees from both the FTC and the White House from 2023 onward. | high |
| 03 | The company provides no explanation of what the Platform Fee funds, either on its website or in post-purchase communications to consumers, a basic transparency step it has chosen not to take. | med |
| 04 | Sunday did not respond to the CLRA pre-suit notice sent by plaintiff Hoke’s counsel demanding that it rectify its pricing practices, forcing the filing of formal litigation. | high |
| 05 | Many class members do not know their legal rights have been violated, meaning Sunday continues to benefit from consumer ignorance and the practical difficulty of pursuing individual claims for small-dollar harm. | med |
This Is the System Working as Intended
Structural critique of digital drip pricing · 4 points
| 01 | Sunday’s scheme is a textbook example of “digital drip pricing,” a deliberate strategy of advertising a low price and adding mandatory charges only as the consumer reaches the point of no return. | high |
| 02 | The practice undermines the free market’s price-comparison mechanism: consumers who cannot see the true cost of a service before committing cannot make rational economic choices between competing options. | high |
| 03 | The White House and the FTC both identified junk fees as a systemic threat to consumer welfare and market competition in 2023 and 2024, yet companies like Sunday continued the practice, betting that enforcement would not reach them. | med |
| 04 | The class action mechanism exists precisely because individual harm of $0.69 or $4.99 is too small to litigate alone, but when multiplied across thousands of transactions, the total represents a significant and unjust transfer of wealth from ordinary restaurant-goers to a venture-backed tech company. | med |
Timeline of Events
2013
The FTC publishes “.com Disclosures,” establishing that all material fees must be disclosed before a consumer commits to a transaction online.
Oct. 2023
The FTC proposes a rule to ban junk fees, citing widespread consumer harm from hidden charges disclosed only late in the transaction process. The proposed rule directly targets the type of drip-pricing practice Sunday employs.
Mar. 2024
The White House publishes a report on junk fees, defining them as mandatory charges “luring consumers with a low price” that is “never really available,” and identifying them as a direct threat to economic competition.
Dec. 6, 2025
Plaintiff Laniesa Shafer uses Sunday’s platform at a Chicago restaurant. Her $39.95 order is charged an undisclosed mandatory Sunday Platform Fee of $0.69.
Dec. 12, 2025
Plaintiff Samuel Hoke uses Sunday’s platform at a Los Angeles restaurant. His $184.00 order is charged an undisclosed mandatory Sunday Platform Fee of $4.99.
Jan. 2026
Plaintiff Hoke’s counsel sends a pre-suit CLRA notice to Sunday App, demanding it correct its pricing practices. Sunday does not respond within the required period.
Jan. 20, 2026
Hoke et al. v. Sunday App, Inc. is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The complaint alleges seven counts including violations of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, California UCL, California CLRA, California False Advertising Law, Georgia Fair Business Practices Act, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment.
Direct Quotes from the Legal Record
QUOTE 1
The core allegation: a “pay junk fees to play” scheme
Core Allegations
“Sunday has engineered a ‘pay junk fees to play’ scheme. Consumers cannot use the Sunday app/payment platforms to pay for their orders unless they pay the junk fee unilaterally set by Defendant.”
💡 This framing from the complaint strips away any technical ambiguity: Sunday built a system where the only way out is to pay a fee the diner never agreed to.
QUOTE 2
Revenue prioritized over transparency
Profit Over People
“Sunday prioritizes hidden revenue over transparency, exploiting consumer trust at each transaction.”
💡 Every single use of the Sunday platform is, according to the complaint, an act of exploitation, not convenience.
QUOTE 3
Consumer inertia is the mechanism of harm
Core Allegations
“This is a classic form of digital ‘drip pricing’ that exploits consumer inertia and effectively deprives consumers of meaningful choice.”
💡 The complaint identifies the precise psychological mechanism Sunday relies on: people who have already committed time and effort are unlikely to abandon a checkout at the last step.
QUOTE 4
The fee is arbitrary, not cost-based
Profit Over People
“The variability of this fee underscores its arbitrariness and confirms that the Fee is not a fixed charge tethered to any legitimate, unavoidable cost of processing a transaction.”
💡 A fee that scales with your bill total, rather than with actual processing costs, is not a service charge. It is a profit mechanism.
QUOTE 5
Millions extracted from ordinary diners
Economic Fallout
“The full amount of losses has not yet been ascertained, but which are believed to exceed the hundreds of thousands, or possibly millions, of dollars in the aggregate.”
💡 What looks like small change per transaction adds up to a massive wealth transfer from restaurant-goers to a tech company.
QUOTE 6
No recourse after the fact
Economic Fallout
“The economic harm is compounded because many consumers only discover the fee after completing their transaction, leaving them with no practical recourse.”
💡 The harm is designed to be irreversible. By the time you see the charge, your money is already gone.
QUOTE 7
The fee provides zero value to consumers
Core Allegations
“This coercive setup turns convenience into a trap, forcing consumers to pay more for no added value.”
💡 Sunday markets itself as a tool that benefits diners. The complaint argues the opposite: the fee is a pure cost with no consumer benefit.
QUOTE 8
Intentional design to deceive
Corporate Accountability Failures
“This deceptive practice is intentionally designed to catch consumers off guard and extract additional revenue without their informed consent.”
💡 The complaint does not characterize this as an oversight or a poor UX decision. It calls it intentional deception.
Commentary
❓
What exactly is the Sunday Platform Fee and why does it matter?
▼
The Sunday Platform Fee is a mandatory charge added to every bill paid through Sunday’s QR-code restaurant payment app. It is not a tax, not a tip, and not tied to any service you choose. It exists solely to increase Sunday’s profits. It matters because it is hidden: consumers see a total price on screen, proceed through multiple checkout steps, and only encounter the fee at the very last moment, after they have already committed to the transaction. This is the textbook definition of a junk fee, a charge designed to be invisible until the consumer has no practical ability to refuse it.
❓
Is this lawsuit legitimate? Could Sunday App just say it discloses the fee somewhere?
▼
The lawsuit has significant legal grounding. The FTC has been explicit since at least 2013 that all material fees must be disclosed before a consumer commits to a purchase, and regulators have specifically targeted drip-pricing practices in recent years. The complaint alleges that Sunday makes no disclosure before checkout begins, and no disclosure at the point where consumers can still meaningfully choose a different payment method. If Sunday argues a disclosure exists somewhere in fine print or a buried screen, the legal test is whether that disclosure is “clear and conspicuous,” not merely technically present. The complaint is backed by named plaintiffs with documented transactions and is filed by experienced consumer class action attorneys.
❓
The fee seems small. Is $0.69 or $4.99 really worth fighting over?
▼
This framing is exactly what corporations count on. When harm is small enough per person that individuals will not pursue it, companies profit from the aggregate. The complaint estimates aggregate damages in the hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of dollars. The class action mechanism exists to make it possible to hold corporations accountable for exactly this kind of widespread, small-scale harm. More fundamentally, the dollar amount is not the only issue. Consent is. You did not agree to this fee. It was taken from you without your knowledge. That is wrong regardless of the amount, and allowing it to continue means every future diner using Sunday will face the same thing.
❓
Who is most affected by Sunday App’s practices?
▼
Every diner who has paid a restaurant bill through Sunday’s QR-code system is affected. That includes people in California, Illinois, Georgia, and every other state where Sunday operates. The harm falls hardest on people who trust that the price shown on a screen is the price they will pay, which is a reasonable expectation that Sunday’s platform deliberately violates. The complaint seeks a nationwide class, meaning that if the case succeeds, any consumer who paid a Sunday Platform Fee during the class period may be entitled to restitution.
❓
Why do restaurants use Sunday if it charges customers hidden fees?
▼
Restaurants use Sunday because it offers operational benefits: faster table turnover, reduced staff time handling payments, and a modern checkout experience. The hidden fee is paid by customers, not restaurants. Sunday’s business model passes the cost of its platform to diners while marketing the convenience to restaurant operators. Many restaurants may not know the specific fee their customers are being charged, or may not fully understand how it is disclosed (or not) within Sunday’s checkout flow. The burden of Sunday’s profit strategy falls entirely on the consumer.
❓
What can I do to prevent this from happening again?
▼
There are concrete steps you can take right now. First, if you have paid through Sunday at a restaurant, review your receipts for a “Sunday Platform Fee” line item. If you find one, you may be a class member and can monitor updates at ClassAction.org or reach out to the plaintiffs’ legal team at Shamis & Gentile, P.A. Second, when dining out, ask your server whether you can pay by traditional credit card or cash rather than a QR-code app, especially if you see a Sunday QR code. Third, contact your elected representatives, particularly those on consumer protection committees, and urge them to support strong federal legislation banning hidden mandatory fees. Fourth, share this story. Most people affected by the Sunday Platform Fee do not know it happened to them. Awareness is the first step toward accountability.
❓
How does this connect to the broader junk fee problem in America?
▼
Sunday’s practices are part of a documented nationwide pattern of corporations using digital platforms to extract hidden revenue from consumers who have already committed to a transaction. The same tactics appear in hotel resort fees, airline baggage charges, ticketing platform fees, and subscription cancellation traps. The FTC and the White House both named junk fees as a systemic economic harm in 2023 and 2024. Sunday is not a rogue actor. It is operating a business model that has become normalized across industries precisely because enforcement has been slow and individual harm is too small to litigate. This lawsuit is part of the broader effort to make hidden fees unprofitable by making them legally costly.
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