An Edinburgh couple have told how scammers targeted them in an elaborate con which saw them charged £63 for a Chinese meal they never ordered.
The first Jason Parker, 24, and his girlfriend, who wishes to remain anonymous, knew about it was when they got an email from JustEat confirmed the order from a restaurant they never he knew existed.
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Popular takeaway giant JustEat has now launched an investigation while its fraud experts are understood to believe the customer's details were obtained elsewhere.
Jason and his partner were billed £63.50 for the mammoth meal of gyoza chicken dumplings, edamame, king prawn satay on skewers, tofu sweetcorn soup, mixed seafood soup, pork sieuw mai, salt and chilli mixed platter, salt and chilli king prawn, salt and chilli chips and sweet and sour chicken.
The couple received an email from JustEat last Tuesday confirming the order for the Chinese that they did not place.
Jason told how neither the restaurant or the address the meal was set to be delivered to were known to them.
So they tried to freeze their bank account as well as contact JustEat to alert them to the issue and to receive a refund - triggering a drawn-out process.
On their ordeal, Jason’s partner said: “I noticed something had happened last Tuesday when I had received an email notification saying an order had been confirmed. I had not placed anything and did not recognise the takeaway or the address it was being sent to.
“I went to freeze my account with the bank and was told to call the fraud team at the bank.
“After this I attempted to contact JustEat’s customer service team but it did not appear to be in operation. I also tried to phone the actual takeaway itself to say it was a fraudulent order but the takeaway number doesn’t appear to be in operation either.
“We then messaged JustEat on Twitter within hours of it happening. They got back to me that night but they just advised me that they were assured there were no data breaches on their end. They said it was a matter of someone accessing my account, so I was told to contact my bank to recover the money."
And after doing some digging into the restaurant in question, the couple believe other customers may have been targeted also.
“What concerns me and what is most relevant, this has happened to over 20 people," said Jason's partner.
Multiple reviews online claim to be from customers who have experienced similar problems.
One review that was left on the site on January 15, reads: “I don’t know what the food was like because My account was hacked and I didn’t order this food!!"
Another left on January 14 adds: “My account was hacked to place this order, I didn’t order it, I tried to ring the restaurant several times to cancel the order and get my money back and none of the calls would even go through.”
While a third noted on January 12: “Someone made an order to the restaurant fraudulently through my account, so I tried to contact them to cancel the order.
"However the number doesn’t even ring so had to call my bank and go through the absolute hassle of changing my card details. Absolutely ridiculous that the restaurant’s number wasn’t even able to be reached.”
And one of the first reviews left on January 6, said: “I did not make this order. Someone has hacked my just eat account and spent £72 on a takeaway to a hotel. After calling the hotel they say no food deliveries here. And this place says it's shut down.”
Edinburgh Live contacted JustEat who confirmed an investigation has been launched.
A JustEat spokesperson said: “Protecting our customers from online fraud is of utmost importance to us and we have multiple security measures in place to protect customer information.
“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 proactively alert customers should they need to change their password.
“We are currently conducting a thorough investigation of this issue to understand the cause and will communicate directly with the customer to resolve the matter.”
If you have been impacted by online scams or think you may have been a victim, please contact: Jacob.Farr@reachplc.com
