Just Eat ‘scam’ costs devastated fish and chip shop owner £9,000

Joe Morgan says he had to borrow money from his bank just to keep his fish and chip shop – Nemo’s – open in Finaghy, Belfast. He said he was “devastated” to lose £8,650 for orders he says his business fulfilled. Mr Morgan says this appeared to have happened after his bank account details were changed on his Just Eat account.

The food delivery app, founded in 2001 in Denmark, is investigating a number of reports of fraud from several eateries in Belfast recently. It’s estimated £15,000 has been lost by these businesses altogether.

Mr Morgan claims he has had to borrow cash to pay suppliers and staff have been left “wondering if they’re going to get paid.”

The businessman told BBC Good Morning Ulster: “There’s no other way around it, if I don’t borrow money I won’t survive.

“It means very, very hard months ahead, it means I’ll have to borrow money to pay suppliers, PAYE, HMRC – there’s a lot of stuff that people don’t see in the background. Chips don’t just make themselves.

“For the staff, it’s not good for them wondering if they’re going to get paid.”

Police are investigating the incident, reports Belfast Live.

Michael Henderson, director of the Northern Ireland Takeaways Association, said: “We aren’t here to point fingers… the one thing we know is that these takeaways are heartbroken.”

Just Eat told BBC: “We take the safeguarding of restaurant accounts on the Just Eat platform extremely seriously.

“We always advise restaurant partners to be vigilant about their online security and recommend that they use unique passwords for different online platforms.

“We continually review our security measures.”