Some Burger King customers were left confused and rightfully a little freaked out this morning when they woke up to a receipt for a fast food order in their email—except they didn’t order any food, and the receipt is completely blank.
Listen, we’ve all ordered fast food in the middle of the night—no shame there. But some Burger King customers were left scratching their heads upon receiving a mysterious receipt last night in their email for a meal they never ordered. Even more curious, the receipt isn’t even for food: It’s completely blank. Some people took to Twitter to share their experiences and voice their confusion.
Caitlyn Ramos, an author in New York, told me on the phone that she deleted Burger King’s app yesterday afternoon but received two of the phantom emails last night. Christian Lathem shared a similar experience, explaining that his girlfriend shared the email with him, and after checking his inbox, he found he received one last night as well. Lathem is a musician based in the United Kingdom. Annika Gibson from Ohio shared a similar story. She received the receipt at 12:09 AM and hasn’t placed an order on the Burger King app since August 2.
Mike Marich in New Jersey was actually able to get in touch with Burger King regarding the blank receipt email…sort of. Marich received the initial blank receipt email at 12:09 a.m overnight, and he reached out to customer service via the Burger King app—he explained to me on the phone that Burger King had no customer service number or contact readily available on their website. Shortly after he reached out, Marich received another email indicating that the company had given him a refund for $23.74. The odd part here is that since Marich’s “most recent order” was a blank receipt, he was refunded for his second most recent order, which he confirmed to me was placed all the way back in November.
It appears that these emails were sent out in one fell swoop, around midnight, with some customers receiving multiple emails. While this is certainly a mysterious occurrence, given that these emails all went out at once, it’s probable that this is more of a system glitch on Burger King’s end and less of a hack from a third party, which the company confirmed to me via email, stating: “We are aware of the issue, which was the result of an internal processing error.”
Update, August 9, 11:45 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include a quote from Burger King.