Kyna Fitzpatrick

The Starbucks app lets customers pay for what they order all on their phone without having to go to the cash register.Starbucks announced Wednesday that hackers have been going into customers accounts and taking money from their bank.

According to cnn.com, the app can reload money onto Starbucks gift cards, straight from a customer’s bank account by automatically withdrawing funds from the bank account. Criminals are taking hold of this by hacking into a customer’s account online and adding a new gift card to transfer all the money onto. Then, taking all the information they received to hack into the person’s bank account.

According to CNBC this is part of a new fraud trend where credit card hackers are targeting third companies new paying apps like Starbucks to help them hack into bank accounts. Starbucks implied that it was because of customers having weak passwords that made it easy for hackers or criminals to get into a customer’s account.  The company also released a statement that they had not been hacked into and that only a few customers have been affected by it.

The only way that customers can protect themselves from getting their account hacked, is by creating a stronger password and erasing any payment methods that they have attached to their card. Customers can disable the auto reload option, but it is not the best way to get rid of the hacker. Hackers can always turn the option back on. Customers could also go to the cash register and pay for their order as well.

This is the second time that Starbucks has run into issues with its paying app system. In 2014 a customer found out that Starbucks was leaving passwords vulnerable and storing them in plain text for hackers and criminals to hack into customer’s accounts and get money from them.

“I do go to Starbucks and have the app but I have not heard about the accounts getting hacked.” Sophomore Basis Brown said.