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It’s a mystery that some Chipotle customers across the country don’t understand.
Diners report that shortly after ordering on the Chipotle app, someone started billing phantom orders to their account.
Jessica Gallenstein is one of those Diners. She recently placed an order through the Chipotle app and then picked up her order a few minutes later at her local restaurant in Ohio.
“I just bought food for myself, and it was,” Gallenstein said.
But the next day, her Bank sent a warning that her debit card was overdrawn.
“My bill was in negative amounts and over a hundred dollars were placed on orders that I did not give permission to place,” she said.
She couldn’t believe what she saw when she logged into her banking app.
“I checked my transaction history and saw that several orders were placed through the Chipotle app without my permission,” she said.
A string of orders, ranging from $ 10 to $ 40, were made using her debit card. The orders all came within a 24-hour period and were placed at several different Chipotle restaurants in her neighborhood – as if her password and username were shared among a group of friends.
How was her account hacked?
Fortunately, her Bank drops the charges. But Gallenstein wants to know who hacked her account.
“I dispute the charges and they said they would take care of it at their end, but as for Chipotle, I called them many times and heard nothing,” she said.
“Chipotle customer accounts, like accounts for many other retail, hotel and restaurant companies, have had cases of ‘account fillings’ where usernames and passwords stolen from other companies are checked to see if they work, ” Chiptole said when asked about Gallenstein’s claims.
Chipotle believes Gallenstein’s password may have been stolen somewhere else and then used when she activated the app that night.
“I’ve used other online ordering apps before and this has never happened to me,” Gallenstein said.
She is still nervous that she could be hacked again even if she changed her password.
How to protect yourself
So, should Chipotle customers be concerned?
Not this afternoon. Customers who use a unique password should be fine. But it is always important not to use the same password on multiple sites.
If the password is stolen from one site, the hacker will try it with the same email address on other popular sites. So be careful and don’t waste money.
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