Photograph: Robert Evans/Alamy
I run a high street pizzeria with my wife and have been the victim of a significant fraud through the Uber Eats delivery platform, with £19,000 of our takings diverted to a rogue account.
I tried to sort this out through the company’s customer service but have encountered nothing but frustration and incompetence.
We have been open for almost 10 years but I am worried we are going to have to close because of this.
It happened at the start of this year when my wife was seriously ill. I only noticed when our Uber Eats payments inexplicably ceased in March.
When I contacted the company, I discovered that someone had accessed our account and rerouted our income to “Jason” at Santander. I don’t know how this could have happened. Uber Eats says I was tricked by a scammer and is refusing to refund me.
GC, London
When you contacted Uber Eats about this fraud, it dismissed you, telling you it was “sorry to hear that you have been the target of a phishing scam”.
Merchants should take “appropriate measures” to safeguard their logins, verification codes and other sensitive information, it said, before signing off that it would “not be reimbursing you as a result of this phishing scam”.
Fraud is an ever-present danger and £1.2bn was stolen from businesses and consumers in 2023. Tricking someone into giving out information over email is called “phishing”. You might receive an email claiming to be from your bank or from a social networking site. They usually include a link to a fake website that looks identical to the real one. When you log in it sends your username and password to someone who will use it to access your real accounts and steal your money.
It is hard to know what really happened here, not least because as far as you are concerned Uber Eats made no effort to get to the bottom of it. You are adamant you did not fall for a scam and the account was hacked another way.
We asked Uber Eats to look at your case, and while it was not forthcoming on the details – you were desperate enough to threaten legal action – the missing £19,000 has been credited to your account. It told us only: “We would encourage all partners to keep their account credentials safe and secure at all times to prevent any unauthorised access.”
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