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The Hamburglar is loose on the McDonald’s App


I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but McDonald’s has been doing a lot to modernize their restaurants, including big touch screen kiosks to take orders as well as being able to order and pay for food on a mobile app. But, as you may have guessed, where there’s technology and money involved, there’s sure to be criminal activity.

The so-called “Hamburglar” is at large, hacking customers’ McDonald’s app accounts and ordering food on their dime. Since February over 20 people have reported that fraudsters, we’ll call them “Hamburglars” somehow infiltrated their McDonald’s phone app which was linked to their debit or credit card — and ordered meals for pickup. In one case, more than $2,000 worth of meals was ordered in one day at different McDonald’s restaurants!

But, here’s the problem. When the victims reported the problem to McDonald’s, the fast food retailer acknowledged that there was a problem but downplayed it as a glitch in the system and assured the victims personal information is secure, but just to be safe, that they should change the password on any site that uses the same password as the McDonald’s app. Suspicious, right? Unfortunately, McDonald’s isn’t issuing refunds, claiming that there’s a middleman processing the payments and that it’s not them and to instead the victims have to take it up with their bank. Victims have reported trying to do this, they’ve reported that it’s a hassle and in some cases they weren’t able to get their money back at all!

The Takeaway

Based on the way McDonald’s is handling this situation, completely disregarding any security problems with their system, making victims take up their problem with their bank, and seeing how obvious it is that that there’s an issue with their App, I’m going to give the McDonald’s app a solid D- score. I wouldn’t recommend using it until they figure this out.

Stay safe out there.

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