Hackers nick hundreds from Groupon account holders to buy iPhones and holidays on their credit cards – here’s how to check if you’ve been affected
If you've ever bought something on Groupon check your emails for mystery purchase receipts
BARGAIN hunting Brits have had hundreds siphoned from their bank accounts after fraudsters hijacked their Groupon accounts.
Groupon account holders have been told to check their account details to make sure they have not been targeted.
Punters began complaining that something wasn’t right in early December after receiving confirmation emails for items they hadn’t bought.
Some customers claim to have had £700 nicked from them.
According to , frustrated Brits are being ignored by Groupon’s customer services department and were told they may have to wait up to 10 days to get it sorted.
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Groupon has not itself been hacked, but fraudsters have hacked individual accounts after accessing log in and password info from other hacks.
It follows revelations that millions of Brits personal details are up for grabs on the dark web after a massive Yahoo hack in 2013.
Groupon would not confirm how many had been affected, but Twitter is awash with complaints.
One bloke received 20 purchase emails in one day for items costing between £10 and £900.
It follows a BBC Watchdog investigation in which Groupon was accused of selling "fake" gold, designer clothes and, oddly enough, washing powder.
A Groupon spokesperson said: "I can confirm there has been no security breach to our website or mobile app. What we are seeing however is a very small number of customers who have had their account taken over by fraudsters.
"Fraudsters have a number of ways in which they can obtain your login details to a website including phishing e-mails, trojan attacks, spyware and malware. By using these methods, it’s possible for fraudsters to get customer account information, log in and make purchases. Fraudsters deliberately look for easy ways to guess login details and password combinations.
"One of the ways they can do this is when user credentials are stolen from a security breach at another e-commerce site and then are used to log in to other websites where the customer’s password is the same. In this way, customers who have either a weak password or the same password for multiple websites are more prone to attack.
"As with any major online retailer, we take fraud extremely seriously and have a dedicated team to investigate customer issues as soon as they are reported. If someone believes they’ve been a victim of a fraudulent attack, we investigate it and if confirmed - block the account immediately and refund the customer’s money back to them."
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