The online greetings card and gift retailer confirmed it was subject to a cyber security incident on Thursday 14 April 2022.

It comes as customers who placed orders in the days leading up to this date had their transactions cancelled and money refunded, while customers took to social media to query why Funky Pigeon was not accepting new online orders over the bank holiday weekend.

A banner on the site still reads: “Oops! We’re experiencing some issues and we can’t accept new orders at the moment. Please try again later!”.

But this morning Funky Pigeon, a WH Smith subsidiary, revealed it is currently investigating the cyber attack with external IT specialists, which is thought to have affected part of its systems.

However, it said customer payment data, such as bank account or credit card details weren’t compromised as this data is processed securely via accredited third-parties and is encrypted.

Further, it believes customer account passwords have not been placed at risk.

But, it can’t say yet the extent to which any personal data, specifically names, addresses, email addresses and personalised card and gift designs has been accessed.

It is writing to all customers over the last 12 months to inform them of these issues.

A statement read: “We take the security of customer data extremely seriously and we have temporarily suspended any new orders via the website.

“We have also informed the relevant regulators and law enforcement authorities, and we will continue to review and update our protocols based on what we learn from this incident.

“We would like to sincerely apologise to our customers for any concern or disruption this may cause, and reassure them that our teams are working around the clock to investigate and resolve this incident. As our investigation progresses, we will provide further updates to customers and other affected parties as necessary.”