Dozens of takeaway businesses in Northern Ireland are in a dispute with food delivery platform Just Eat after losing hundreds of thousands of pounds in a scam.
Fifteen businesses have reported their concerns to the platform, which says it has been unable to help because the food outlets have fallen victim to “phishing scams”.
The Northern Ireland Food To Go Association estimates that local businesses have lost more than £200,000 after having their bank account details changed by scammers on the platform.
The first incident was reported in December 2022, with another case reported as recently as three weeks ago. The PSNI has said it is investigating a number of reports of so-called “mandate fraud”.
In March 2022 JustEat updated its security policies to ensure businesses had to provide a form of ID and proof of bank account ownership when updating account details - something the local businesses say they never did.
One Belfast business claims it was offered money by JustEat to “keep quiet” about their loss of over £15,000, an offer the company has described as a “goodwill gesture”.
“I couldn’t recover the money because the money never went to my account in the first place,” Nemo’s fish and chip shop owner Joe Morgan says.
He said he was offered £4,500 in the “goodwill” payment.
“It’s been a nightmare ... I had to borrow £10,000 after that just to get me through that period so it had a big knock-on effect on the business.
“The unfortunate thing about JustEat with me and everyone else is that it represents over 45% of your sales. If I could get away with pulling out of JustEat, I would.”
A spokesperson for JustEat said it disputed the total amount claimed to be lost by the businesses, and in the case of Nemo’s said it “could not identify any breach of our security or compromise of our systems”. It said it had offered Nemo’s a “monetary goodwill gesture”.
“We have conducted an extensive investigation and are confident in the rigour of our security systems,” a spokesperson said.
“These scams are conducted by organised groups impersonating JustEat, and there is no evidence to suggest there has been a breach of our systems.
“We take the safeguarding of restaurant information extremely seriously and have multiple forms of authentication to protect our partners.
“Like all responsible businesses, we would never request sensitive account or financial information over the phone and we regularly remind restaurants to remain vigilant about their account security at all times.
“We were very sorry to hear about these incidents and we do sympathise with the owners at this difficult time.”
Michael Henderson, chief executive of the NI Food To Go Association, said JustEat needed to do more to help businesses affected.
Mr Henderson said: “JustEat has had many opportunities to correct this, with the same outcome - blaming it on the victims.
“These victims never had this money in their accounts, they never gave their details out, but yet they are the ones who are suffering.
“JustEat have a responsibility to these partners and to these small to medium size businesses. Some stores have closed over this issue.
“We understand that JustEat is critical to this industry and we want to work alongside them to come to a successful outcome here where these victims can receive their money.”
