The Energon Pub

kirbenvost wrote:

Loki God Of Mischief wrote:

kirbenvost wrote:Well, for the record this won't stop me from buying for TFsource. It will, however, make me a little more careful about using my credit card online.

I actually called my credit card company about that $1 iTunes charge and they weren't very helpful. The guy told me it was probably what I'd originally thought, and doubted that they'd claim $1. Sounded pretty condescending the whole time too.

I explained to mine that it was the result of a site that I shop on being hacked, me finding out from a friend and a news report and that the first part of the scam was the $1 charge to see if the card was active, then the second part was to rape the account until it's closed. The guy I talked to was really helpful once I explained that and after he verified I'm who I said I was he canceled the card, said that a new one would ship tomorrow and take two days (probably business days so Monday or Tuesday at the latest) and said I'd be getting a new card number and password. It sucks that the guy you talked to was a jerk.

I think I've spoken to the same guy in the past...if so, according to him airlines also apparently routinely charge you twice for your ticket but only claim one of the charges. That caused me to exceed my credit limit, and all I could do was wait until the unclaimed charge dropped off. Never heard of that before. Ridiculous.

I didn't ask to cancel my card, only that I was reporting an unauthorized transaction. The most he could say was that there isn't much they can do at this point. Hopefully it doesn't turn out for the worst.

Oh, I did remove all my credit card information from iTunes though. I googled it and it seems to be a very common scam in the past couple of years. Somehow they hack your iTunes account and rip you off for hundreds of dollars worth of downloads or gift cards.

I don't even have itunes. So it was pretty obvious that there was something up. I don't pay to download music.

Thanks for this info guys.

I recently made my first purchase from TFSource, so I'll be vigilant.

I do not see any odd charges on my card, but I'll be watching.

"...Whatever THEY want - they are GETTING it!!!"

I would just like to reiterate for those of you who are checking your credit card statements, not all credit card companies show pending charges on their online statements. You need to call the 800-number on the back of the card, speak to a representative and have them specifically look for pending charges to the account.

kirbenvost wrote:I didn't ask to cancel my card, only that I was reporting an unauthorized transaction. The most he could say was that there isn't much they can do at this point. Hopefully it doesn't turn out for the worst.

Oh, I did remove all my credit card information from iTunes though. I googled it and it seems to be a very common scam in the past couple of years. Somehow they hack your iTunes account and rip you off for hundreds of dollars worth of downloads or gift cards.

This situation has absolutely nothing to do with iTunes. You should call up your card and explicitly state that you would like to have them send you a new card with different numbers because the other card was compromised. It should be a fairly routine and simple thing. If they don't do that for you, then you ask to speak to the manager or someone that can help you.

"Worst case scenario", you call back, get someone different on the phone, and simply tell them that you "lost" your card and are concerned about the card being physically stolen. They will send you a new card.

Either way, if you had one of these bogus charges show up on your account, you MUST cancel the number and get a new one. This isn't a wait and see type-of-thing. The way hackers work ... it will just be a matter of time before your card is used for a major unauthorized purchase. I wouldn't be surprised if the cards that received "unauthorized" transactions don't end up on a hackers list somewhere that gets sent around in that black market world to other hackers.

We're here warning you now. Avoid this situation. You've got to do this, especially if your card has already received unauthorized transactions.

Just checked all my cards, and everything is OK. I tend to pay using PayPal everywhere I can, except for BBTS.

I hope TFSource weathers this well. I haven't used them yet, but I don't want to see them get hurt by a clearing house having problems. Back in June or July, the clearing house my credit union uses was broken into, and it took weeks to get it resolved.

Wow, I'd suggest that anyone that made a purchase at TFsource keep an eye on their credit card accounts. I checked mine last night and there was nothing. I checked today to find a nice $3K and change charge. Canceled my card. Can't say that I'm all that happy.

I've seen the comments back and forth in this thread. Either way, TFsource should have taken responsibility to personally notify customers of the issue, at the very least.

It happens, get over it, cancel your card, get a new one, have the charges removed due to fraud and move on

Seibertron wrote:This situation has absolutely nothing to do with iTunes. You should call up your card and explicitly state that you would like to have them send you a new card with different numbers because the other card was compromised. It should be a fairly routine and simple thing. If they don't do that for you, then you ask to speak to the manager or someone that can help you.

"Worst case scenario", you call back, get someone different on the phone, and simply tell them that you "lost" your card and are concerned about the card being physically stolen. They will send you a new card.

Either way, if you had one of these bogus charges show up on your account, you MUST cancel the number and get a new one. This isn't a wait and see type-of-thing. The way hackers work ... it will just be a matter of time before your card is used for a major unauthorized purchase. I wouldn't be surprised if the cards that received "unauthorized" transactions don't end up on a hackers list somewhere that gets sent around in that black market world to other hackers.

We're here warning you now. Avoid this situation. You've got to do this, especially if your card has already received unauthorized transactions.

The thing is, I had just previously updated my credit card information in iTunes, just a day before this story popped up. So I don't really know for sure if it actually *is* an unauthorized transaction, or if it's just iTunes legitimately confirming if my card is valid. It showed up as a $1 transaction specifically from iTunes, so it could be legit. If I hadn't just changed my card info recently I would definitely be a lot more concerned, but right now I'm not too worried.

Besides, my card is maxed right now as well...if they tried to do anything it would be declined.

I do appreciate your concern and I know this is an important matter, but because it's very coincidental that I had just changed my card info in iTunes, I'm not all that worried.

Here is the message received today from Curt, the owner of TFsource.com. TFsource.com is one of Seibertron.com's sponsors.

Dear TFsource Members,

It has come to our attention that some of our customers information may have been compromised based on an attack that resulted in fraudulent charges being attempted on some customers credit card accounts.

We are recommending each customer who has a credit card on file with TFsource to review your statements and contact your credit card issuer immediately. Additionally please contact us if you would like us to remove all of your card data from your account.

Only a sub-segment of our customers so far has been affected, and this could be a larger issue outside of TFsource, but regardless it is our recommendation for all customers of TFsource to be safe and follow the above course of action.

Note: If you make purchases on TFsource via Paypal, Paypal is a trusted 3rd party and not affected, and is always a secure way to pay on TFsource. Also customers who pay with check or money order are not affected.

We are still investigating this matter and have been working diligently adding additional layers of security to our website, as well as with our 3rd party credit card processor regardless of where the issue originated. We will be continuing this process and adding further security to the site over the next few days and looking at long term solutions to restore confidence to all who visit our site and ensure TFsource is always a secure site to shop at.

We realize this is very frustrating for all involved. We at TFsource have always operated this business with the highest level of integrity, and I can personally assure you that no one internally at TFsource was involved in any of these actions.

Finally we would like to thank all that were persistent in bringing this matter to our attention as early as possible. Without the community and support we would not have been able to begin immediately investigating this issue.

Sincerely,
Curt

TFsource.com has been a great asset in the world of online retailers that sell Transformers toys. We hope that you will continue to support TFsource.com by continuing to purchase products from them. If you have a Paypal account, we would recommend that you use that in the meantime when purchasing orders from TFsource.com.

For additional information regarding this unfortunate situation, please read yesterday's news story.

Called AmEx again to verify my account and it seems to be secure. Just watch your accounts for the meantime, it could happen with anyone. TFsource has done fine by me and I will continue to purchase stuff from them, but this time I'll go through Paypal. I also asked Curt to remove my credit card info from their database just as a safety precaution.

Remember, TFsource is as much a victim here as anyone else, maybe even more because they stand to lose a lot more than any one single person here. It was their 3rd party credit card processor that was compromised, not them directly, but they are now carrying the stigma that this issue has brought about. If it happened with BBTS, I would still patronize them because they are also good people.

I also asked to have my credit card info removed from my Tfsource account, but I will certainly continue to order from them using Paypal.

Alot of the members here make very good points...The situation is a tough one no doubt for all of those involved..If anything it should just encourage people to use paypal instead of directly using a CC..Personally , after having some time to contact the staff at Tfsource and reaqd up on some of the info here as well, I decided that Tfsource is in fact not the devil here but rather the lil bastids who were behind this..


I decided that I'm gonna give Tfsource another chance.. I hope that many others decide to as well..I have had serveral good convo's with the staff as of late and they have regained my business..I wish the best of luck to Curt and the staff and hope this matter gets resolved .

I'm really glad to see cooler head prevail in the last few posts.

Look guys (& gals), your data is being compromised all the time. Hell, everytime you hand your credit card to a waiter in a restaurant, you're exposed. Sometimes things like this happen and the credit/data handlers realize they've been hacked. Other times, hackers download tons of data and just walk away. There may be no issues or warning signs for weeks or months. The point is this: for most of us who purchase items online with a credit card, it's a matter of if, not when, you'll be compromised. And in the end, since credit card issuers will not hold you liable for these charges, it's generally not much more than an inconvinience at best. This sucks, I know. But it's sure not going to stop me from buying online, be it BBTS, TFSource, Amazon, or any other online vendor.

Happy i haven`t used any sites yet. Just shows how much their security system is worth. And that you should use InPrivate when you buy anything.

Just got a call from my credit card company about several charges that tried to go through this morning, Itunes and a couple of HK based sites. Fortunately, the CC company stopped all of them and is closing that account.

EDIT: I just tried getting onto TFSource and doublechecking which cards of mine are on there and the whole site is offline.

Seems to be back up right now. Curt did say that they would be upgrading their security systems and such so that could be why the site was down.

I checked my credit card again and that $1 iTunes charge was unclaimed and has dropped off my account. I'm fairly certain now that my card was not affected and that was iTunes legitimately confirming my card info. Curt also said that the only card info I had on file was from my old expired card, and all my recent orders have been by Paypal.

Man, I just gotta call right now from my credit card company that somebody was trying to purchase Itunes with my debit card. I was checking my card online last week when this news hit. No transactions. But from the phone call, the guy said they tried purchasing Itunes on january 7th and something that's worth $500. I was thinking, I was checking my account last week and nothing happened. The dude said they were just checking to see if the card was working or something.

Does TFSource use the same third party company to charge cards that Toy Arena uses?

No charges to my card as of yet.

I did a search of the forums to see if this was already being discussed, but searching for "TFSource credit card" brought this up as what looked like the most recent thread. It turns out that TFSource has had their credit card records compromised again. Of course there's been no notification to their customer base, and I've been warned to stop talking about it on TFW's forums. You can view the thread here:

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-general-discussion/286348-warning-tfsource-account-billing-info-compromised-may-2011-a-114.html#post6089982

If you've done any business with TFSource over the past 6 months (I believe that was the oldest report we got in the thread), or honestly if you've EVER done business with TFSource and they have one of your current cards on record, you should be extremely vigilant in watching your account for suspicious charges!

This is the second time they've been compromised, and when combined with the shady crap they pulled with the Shadow Scyther restock incident, I have decided that I will never purchase from their business again.

last month I bought a G1 figure from TFsource using an Amex card. Checked it now, no suspicious charges. So far I have no beef with Tfsource, but they should notify people that their 3rd party company who handles the card #s - got hacked. That's the least they can do

Until there is indisputable proof to the contrary, please keep in mind that this discussion is purely speculation at this point. I know some of you feel wronged by this, but I'll take Curt at his word that they were not hacked to the best of his knowledge. He was very forthcoming with information the first time this happened in December 2009/January 2010 so I trust that he would do the same this time.

For those of you who are concerned about your cards, simply call up your bank, have them cancel your current cards and have them send you new ones. Banks should all do this for you free of charge. Yeah, it's a little inconvenient having to update your card number with everyone, but it sure as hell beats waking up and having your account zeroed out.

For those of you who have had your information recently compromised, is there any chance that this is the same card that you had on file with TFsource from 1.5 years ago? Is it possible that your card was part of the hack that affected major retailers such as Target, Zales, etc a month or two back? Is it possible that you used your card recently at Michael's or Aldi's, both stores that recently had their debit card machines hacked?

Just seems like there's too much of this going on elsewhere right now for us to be able to pinpoint this on TFsource at the moment. I've read a lot of the concerns posted at TFW and can come up with conterpoints for most of what people have encountered from my experience as an e-commerce website programmer from the past ten years. I'm not ruling out that TFsource was hacked, I just think people have been too quick to assume that's where this problem came from.

As I stated in the TFW thread, I dealt with the problems for almost 2 weeks before seeing the thread on TFW. My debit card, my wife's credit card, my wife's debit card, and my friend's debit card all got compromised. It wasn't until we were sitting around the kitchen table and they were watching me unwrap my birthday presents that it all came together. I kept saying, "You ordered this online, didn't you?" and they both said they ordered my gifts from TFSource. A little more talking, and it turned out all three of us had cards compromised. That's what led me to start checking for info online, and I found the TFW thread. Now it seems like it's all going to get covered up, judging by TFSource's lack of public comment and the TFW admin trying to censor the thread.

There are also multiple people in the TFW thread who had cards that were used for nothing but TFSource. It's not really a question whether it could be TFSource yet, but more of a question of why they chose not to notify their customer base when the first reports of this were sent to them almost a month ago now. They are (sometimes) responding to complaints by saying that the problem lies with authorize.net, their credit card processor. Odds are that this is the same processor they were using the first time they had this problem...they have not been forthcoming with information, because all they've ever said publicly is that security is important to them and that they're improving it.

If they stuck with the same credit card processor after the first time this happened, then this time the blame rests squarely on their shoulders.

VectorA3, just make sure you keep a close eye on your account. The thing with these security breaches is that the thieves get a whole list of credit card numbers at a a time...they don't pick and choose. Your account looks just fine, business as usual, right up until they finally pick your number off that list and try to do something with it. Charges to places like iTunes or online dating sites are common ways for credit thieves to check and make sure your card is valid. If you have a spouse, and you see some small iTunes charge on your account the first day, don't just assume she bought a song or CD...ask her. The first report of someone having a problem occurred on May 4th. I'm still hearing from people as of yesterday who are just now seeing the fraudulent charges.

Thanks for the warning. Hope no one else gets screwed. TFsource is either incredibly dumb or really doesn't think they've been breached if they are not sending warning notifications to their customers. Why they don't care about losing customers is beyond me.