Samsung customers have said they were left “freaked” and “scared” after receiving an accidental alert from the company in the early hours of Thursday morning.

A number of customers said their handsets had been sent a message from the Samsung’s Find My Mobile service and the number 1 appeared a few times.

On Twitter, one customer told the company that she had been left confused when she was awoken by an alert and said she would be “really grateful for an explanation”.

While some users complained of being woken up by the text, others said they were worried their device had been hacked. Affected customers took to social media platform Reddit to share screenshots of the alert, and to find out what it might mean.

Devices affected by the message include Galaxy products running Android O or newer, including Samsung’s latest Galaxy S phones, its new Z-Flip device and some Samsung tablet computers.

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Responding to the concerns, Samsung said the alert was “sent unintentionally during internal testing”, and assured customers that it had no impact on their devices.

“Samsung apologises for any inconvenience this may have caused to our customers and will work to prevent similar cases from occurring in the future,” the firm continued. The notification, the company said, was sent to a “limited number of Galaxy devices”.

It added: “We sincerely apologise to our customers for the inconvenience this may have caused and will ensure that a similar incident doesn’t occur in the future.”