Takeaway boss ‘scammed out of month’s profits’ days before Christmas by crooks posing as JustEat
A TAKEAWAY says he boss was scammed out of a month’s worth of profits just DAYS before Christmas.
Devastated Mehdi Javadinejad, who runs Caldo Pizza with his wife Elnaz, 33, and daughter Elyza, five, was forced to pay staff out of his own savings after the cash was swindled.
The dad, from Bradford, West Yorks., said he was scammed by crooks posing as JustEat – and he’s terrified it could happen again.
Mehdi, 41, explained how scammers easily convinced him they were legit because he had been having issues with the device the restaurant used to receive orders from the takeaway website.
He thinks crooks changed his bank details after logging in, and soon after, £3,000 vanished.
The pizza chef told The Sun: “I have been working so hard for this money, we are not a big company, we’ve been earning it pound by pound.
“Somebody called me from a JustEat number saying I had a problem with the device.
“I was actually having a problem with the device, so I thought the person was calling from JustEat – he had all my details and everything seemed right.
“I didn’t know this is fake- How was I supposed to know?
“They never asked for any bank details or anything like that.
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“This is my whole takings-we have to do shopping we have to pay wages and right before Christmas.”
He added: “I had to use my savings to pay the staff- there are five, six people working, they all got wives, they got kids and it comes Christmas time they have to buy presents.
“It just winds you up and it makes you so upset.”
Simon Shackleton, who works at the takeaway said: “It was very easy for them, they sounded very confident on the phone, they knew what they were talking about- it’s very high-tech what they’re doing and we’re worried it might happen again.
“We just need Just Eat to put some more security measures in place, if anyone can change the bank details on the portal, they should contact them straight like bank do.”
The takeaway worker said he fears the restaurant was an easy target for the crooks because they had been having problems with their JustEat machine.
He added: “JustEat said they can’t do anything about it, they’re not willing to do anything about it- their response was ‘if you don’t want to use JustEat take the machine out but they know we cant do that.
“It’s about the money but we also want to highlight this because we don’t know who to trust now.
“You’re waiting now every week for the money in your account in case there’s another issue.
“We are worried it might happen again.
“We just need Just Eat to put some more security measures in place, when anyone changes the bank details on the portal, they should contact them straight like bank do.”
A spokesperson for JustEat told The Sun: “Just Eat is only successful if our restaurant partners are successful.
“We are in constant contact with the restaurant partner and will be investigating what happened in this case.”
