‘Hacking of account could have cleared me out’

WOMAN FOUND MEALS SENT TO WEST BROMWICH AND DUNDEE

A JUST Eat customer found out her account had been hacked when food was sent to addresses in Birmingham and Dundee within the space of a few minutes.

The 52-year-old Leicestershire woman said she first knew there was an issue when she got a notification on her phone about an order she had supposedly made.

It said £50.40 had been spent on a deluxe dim sum combo from Eatwise in Sam’s Lane, West Bromwich, along with a set menu meal for five people.

It was sent to a house in Farm Street in the West Midlands town.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, called Eatwise to complain.

But within moments another notification popped up on her phone saying occupants of a flat in Marketgait Apartments in Dundee were about to get £32.68 worth of Burger King food.

Both orders popped up on her banking app as being pending payments that would be charged to her Visa card.

The woman said: “I just suddenly got this notification for an order I hadn’t made.

“I phoned the restaurant in Birmingham and told them it wasn’t me and I was told not to worry - just to cancel the order.

“I cancelled the order and the app told me I was being charged the full price anyway. Then the other order came in from Dundee.

“I tried to cancel that one quickly but cancelling wasn’t an option for some reason so I rang Just Eat.

“It wasn’t easy finding a phone number for them – they don’t make it easy to complain about being defrauded.

“A woman on the phone said there was nothing she could do and that I should tell them on the app chat thing.

“When I did that they said I should call my bank and change my password.

“Then, when I went to change my password the link just did not work so I just deleted my bank card details.

“Who knows how many more orders from around the country I would have got otherwise?”

She said her bank, NatWest, was helpful and assured her it would repay the sum.

The woman said: “It’s just a good thing I spotted the notification when I did. There could have been people ordering food all night on my account. They could have cleared me out.

“Just Eat was really unhelpful. I was so cross about it. I looked on the TrustPilot reviews for Just Eat.

“I’m clearly not the only one who has had this kind of problem with them.”

She said she later had an email from Just Eat asking whether she had enjoyed her meals in Dundee and Birmingham.

She said she had now made a complaint to Just Eat about their customer service.

A spokeswoman for Just Eat said the use of the woman’s details was not the result of a data breach at the company.

She said: “Protecting our customers from online fraud is of utmost importance to us.

“We have multiple security measures in place to protect customer information.

“We are currently conducting a thorough investigation of this issue to understand the cause and have been in touch directly with the customer to resolve the matter.

“We do not store customer card details on our website or app and all payments are managed securely by an independent external payment service provider.

“Additionally, our systems screen customers’ login credentials against a list of breaches from all over the web and we alert customers should they need to change their password.”