There’s someone in Canada who apparently idolizes the Hamburglar a bit too much.
Police in Quebec are searching for a person who has been hacking into the McDonald’s app of strangers and racking up thousands of dollars worth of food purchases. The latest victim was Patrick O’Rourke, the managing editor of the tech news site MobileSyrup , who said it wasn’t until later that he realized someone had hacked him. Someone was able to hack O’Rourke’s app for the fast food restaurant, ordering more than 100 meals to be picked up between April 12 an 18.
As the CBC reported, the purchases included a load of Big Macs and McFlurries. O’Rourke doesn’t think one person could have possibly eaten all that food.
“It could be one guy who was able to hack my account and he shared it with a bunch of his friends across Montreal, and they all just went on a food spree,” O’Rourke told the CBC.
This came after a spate of other incidents across Canada where McDonald’s customers had their apps hacked and large amounts of fast food added to their accounts. Though the four victims so far are spread across Canadian provinces, all of the orders have been in Quebec.
Hamburglar strikes again, feasts on $2,000 in meals using customer’s McDonald’s app #Canada https://t.co/XoyM1aOEMf pic.twitter.com/HkhqVLcuC5
— Opinionated Hijabi (@Opinionatedhjby) April 28, 2019
The thefts have led some people to take to social media, warning others not to link the McDonald’s app to their bank accounts. O’Rourke said McDonald’s wasn’t much of a help in that matter.
“To me, it just seems like a little bit negligent… like they don’t really care,” he said. “McDonald’s should at least be sending out a mass email to everyone that has the account [to say], ‘Hey, you should reset your password.’ ”
This is not the first time that Canada has been linked to a McDonald’s caper. As The Daily Beast recounted, a crime network had found a way to rig the fast food chain’s annual Monopoly game to filter prizes away from Canada and into the waiting fingers of the perpetrators. They were able to snag the $1 million prize, beating the 1-in-250 million odds to win the prize.
Even those participating said they grew worried that officials would notice that there were never any winners in Canada.
“I knew what we were doing in Canada was wrong,” said Jerome Jacobson, who was part of the scheme. “Sooner or later, somebody was going to be asking questions about why there were no winners in Canada.”
The report did not say if authorities had a suspect in mind for the latest McDonald’s thefts.
