Beijing Food and Drug Administration (BFDA) say they've opened investigations into all three of China's major food delivery sites -- Baidu Waimai, Meituan Waimai, and ele.me -- following complaints received from customers in the first half of this year.
The platforms are likely to be working with restaurants or food providers which haven't publicly posted their legal restaurant certifications, says the authority.
These will lead to fines of up to 200,000 yuan (30,145 U.S. dollar) for the food delivery platforms.
A report on the Beijing Youth Daily showed it had very simple procedures to register as a store on these platforms, even without a real physical presence. Such stores are usually dubbed "ghost stores".
Applicants simply need to provide basic information like a copy of an ID card, bank card details, and phone number to an underground agent, who will usually charge several hundred yuan for their services.
Baidu Waimai argues, however, that some stores fake their documents using software such as Photoshop, which makes it almost impossible for their staff to spot fakes.
According to ele.me policies, even after submitting store details, a store cannot officially be put online until ele.me personnel visit the physical store and confirm the authenticity of the address.
But one underground agent told the Beijing Youth Daily journalist that this procedure is usually a formality. The agent said a fake address or claim to be a franchise of other certified stores was all that was needed to get around the authenticity checks.
A Beijing-based lawyer Han Xiao said running a business online in another company's name without permission is clearly illegal, adding that the platform is also responsible as they failed to fulfill their promise to check the authenticity of the physical store address.
According to the BFDA, the first batch to be investigated have been selected by computer from a larger total. Further investigations are expected in the future.
