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The Pink Parlor faced a financial setback of $3,200 when hackers took control of its Uber Eats account. Fortunately, Anthony Austin intervened to help restore their access and ensure payments were redirected back to the rightful owners.
ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — Relief has finally come to a beloved ice cream shop in St. Johns County after a troubling incident earlier this year, where a scammer hijacked their Uber Eats account, causing funds to be misdirected.
In June, Debra Alessi-Sromovski and her husband noticed an issue with their Uber Eats merchant account. While orders continued to pour in, the earnings were mysteriously being diverted elsewhere.
“They managed to erase my banking details and replace them with a fraudulent LLC,” Alessi-Sromovski explained.
Overall, the couple discovered Uber Eats owed them more than $3,200. Alessi-Sromovski recounted spending several months attempting to resolve the situation on her own.
“I’ve spent hours upon hours trying to solve this,” she said. “Sometimes people can’t get out of their homes and they turn to Uber Eats because they love our ice cream.”
Despite numerous calls, messages, and even certified letters, nothing worked—until she contacted the Ask Anthony team in September.
“We have received our money in full thanks to you,” Alessi-Sromovski said. “It means a lot to us as a small business to be able to get paid for services that we render.”
After Anthony Austin reached out to Uber Eats, a representative responded within 24 hours and promised to investigate. Uber later confirmed the situation was rare and said it’s working to crack down on scams targeting local businesses.
The company said it urges merchants to never share passwords or verification codes and noted it will never ask for that information. Uber says it restores compromised accounts as quickly as possible and encourages businesses to report any suspicious activity immediately.
Uber has now restored The Pink Parlor’s account, updated its banking information, and sent a representative in person to the store.
“Uber sent out their top salesperson and we had a discussion. We went over everything. So now everything will flow seamless, hopefully, um, on a regular basis we’ll get our deposits every Monday um from the sales that we’ve done,” she said.
When asked if the resolution worked, Alessi-Sromovski said, “Absolutely.”
If you have a problem you can’t solve, email AskAnthony@firstcoastnews.com
