ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — Relief has finally come to a local ice cream shop in St. Johns County, as they begin to recover earnings that were diverted when their Uber Eats account was hacked earlier this year.

In June, Debra Alessi-Sromovski and her husband noticed anomalies with their Uber Eats merchant account. Although orders continued, the funds were being redirected to an unauthorized recipient.

“They managed to erase my banking details and replace them with a fraudulent LLC,” Alessi-Sromovski explained.

She reported that Uber Eats owed her over $3,200. Alessi-Sromovski mentioned she had spent countless hours attempting to resolve the issue on her own.

“I’ve invested hours trying to rectify this,” she said. “Many people rely on Uber Eats for our ice cream, especially when they can’t leave their homes.”

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.”

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