A takeaway owner is "absolutely devastated" after falling victim to a suspected scam which left her hundreds of pounds out of pocket.
Sammy Davies said it took several days before anyone realised it was too late and as a result has lost more than £1,000 to the suspected Just Eat scam.
The restaurant owner, who runs Sammy's Milkshakes Wonders in North Wales, said a convincing hacker gained her trust before logging into her account and changing her business' bank details so they could pocket her hard-earned profits, reports North Wales Live.
READ MORE: Suspect named after more than £5,000 of damage to train crossing
Sammy had been in touch with food delivery service Just Eat a week prior, due to a fault with her ordering machine, and so when she received a call one Monday afternoon, she had no reason to believe it was not genuine.
She said: "He knew my login details, my password, my phone number, he knew that I was waiting for this new machine to arrive.
"So I obviously believed it because he knew all my information."
But alarm bells began to ring when she did not receive her weekly payment later that week.
She added: "When it got to Friday when I was supposed to get paid, I went onto my account there was nothing there, so then I started thinking what's going on?
"That's when I started panicking, that's when I first thought something's not right."
Sammy claims she called Just Eat three times, and each time she was reassured the money would be deposited into her account shortly, but it wasn't until later that week her fears were confirmed.
Sammy claims it took Just Eat staff several days to notice her account details had been changed, and when they finally realised, it was too late. The week's profit's had been paid into a stranger's account.
She said: "When I phoned back for the fourth time that day, the woman said straight away "I'm so sorry I don't know why no one noticed this earlier, you've been a victim of fraud."
"When she said that I was just in shock, I was so worried about what I was going to do. Without this money I can't pay my staff, I can't open, I could lose everything.
"I just feel like someone's come into my home and burgled me, I just don't feel safe.
"He changed them on Monday and it took until Friday and me calling multiple times a day for someone to notice.
"I was phoning and panicking all day and it was there in front of their faces, the lady on the phone even told me if it had been spotted at nine o'clock in the morning then it could've been stopped. How has this massive worldwide company not spotted this?"
After posting her story on social media, Sammy said the local community has rallied to support her.
In a remarkable gesture, one man from local food delivery service Wrexham Eats, gave Sammy £300 to help her pay her staff.
She added: "One of the first things I thought about when I found out the money was gone was "How am I going to pay my staff?" My staff have got their own bills to pay and families to support and they can't afford not to get their money.
"After I put a post up on Facebook, I got a message from someone from Wrexham Eats saying he'd sent me £300 to pay my staff and I honestly couldn't believe it.
"It might only be one week's wage but that one week's wage is our lifeline, I'm so grateful for that."
The business owner claims she hasn't received any contact from Just Eat since she was told she had been a victim of fraud.
A Just Eat spokesperson said: “We take the safeguarding of restaurant accounts on the Just Eat platform extremely seriously and we are currently investigating what happened in this restaurant's case.
"We continually review our security measures and always advise restaurant partners to be vigilant about their online security and recommend that they use unique passwords for different online platforms."
Receive newsletters with the latest news, sport and what's on updates from the Liverpool ECHO by signing up here
