Napier’s The Sushi Club waits six weeks for money owed after Uber Eats account hacked

Penny Leigh, owner of Napier's The Sushi Club, says Uber Eats froze nearly $3000 of payments while it investigated her complaint about her account being scammed. Inset: File image of Uber Eats delivery person.

A Napier eatery had to wait six weeks to receive thousands of dollars in frozen payments after scammers hacked its Uber Eats account.

In that time, owner Penny Leigh says she repeatedly tried to contact Uber Eats to find out what was going on, but had no luck.

Uber says it is sorry to hear about the stress and disruption the incident has caused. It says it froze the account to investigate and complete necessary security steps.

Leigh and husband Steve own The Sushi Club on Dickens St.

In December, they signed up for the online food delivery service, which has been operating in the region since 2020.

Leigh said Uber’s communication was initially “really good”.

In February, she started receiving calls from people she believed were scammers pretending to be from Uber. She said she was tricked into giving out The Sushi Club’s latest email account.

Scammers accessed The Sushi Club’s account on the afternoon of Monday, February 16 and changed its details so order payments would go to them.

Leigh said Uber paid orders each Tuesday. “So, I was pretty damn stressed.”

However, she said she quickly corrected the account details, and Uber paid the money to her on February 17.

Leigh said she spoke with an Uber representative about the hack. They placed The Sushi Club’s account on hold while an investigation took place.

The Sushi Club then spent weeks fulfilling Uber Eats orders, but not getting paid.

Leigh said the total Uber owed her business rose to nearly $3000.

However, she said she could not contact a representative for an investigation update.

Leigh said the restaurant stopped taking Uber Eats orders.

“We couldn’t keep using Uber while we weren’t getting paid, and we were unsure whether we were even going to,” she said.

“It was really horrible.”

Leigh said she contacted every Uber address she could find but heard nothing back.

On Saturday, March 28, Uber Eats contacted Leigh to say its account was unlocked and payment would be made that Tuesday. This was nearly six weeks after the account was put on hold.

An Uber spokesperson said it took reports of account compromise and impersonation scams seriously.

“We’re sorry to hear about the stress and disruption this incident has caused Penny and The Sushi Club.”

Uber might place “temporary safeguards” on an account while details are verified once it becomes aware of suspicious activity, such as unauthorised access or banking information changes.

The withheld payments to The Sushi Club had been made “now that the required account security steps have been completed”.

Leigh said The Sushi Club would stay with Uber Eats because of its popularity.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do if we get hacked again.”

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in Britain, Germany, and New Zealand.