Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications

Monday, March 5th, 2012 12:30pm CST

Categories: Event News, Press Releases, Company News, Collector's Club News
Posted by: Seibertron Views: 56,083

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Here is a message we just received from Hasbro regarding recent situations with Fun Publications, the organization which runs the Transformers Collectors' Club, BotCon (the official Transformers convention), G.I. Joe Collectors' Club, and JoeCon (the official G.I. Joe convention).

Hasbro wrote:To the G.I. Joe and Transformers fan communities and Fun Publications customers,

Thank you for bringing your concern to our attention and for giving Hasbro the opportunity to respond to a matter that impacts its G.I. Joe and Transformers brands. Please know we take all consumer concerns very seriously and are in regular contact with Fun Publications (our licensee) about the possibility of a breach in security to their online purchasing system for the G.I. Joe and Transformers Collectors' Clubs. Fun Publications is also taking this matter very seriously and is diligently working at identifying any problems, the number of customers affected and ways to ensure it does not happen to any more customers. Hasbro wants consumers to have a positive experience at all touch points for its brands, including transactions with its licensees. As such, we are confident that Fun Publications has detailed instructions and pertinent information available for those consumers who believe they may have been targeted by credit theft via their portals.

Based on our extensive conversations with the Fun Publications team Hasbro wants to convey the following to the fan communities:

Fun Publications has assured us that they are taking necessary measures to curb additional issues, and they are working with third party experts to identify the problem. They anticipate knowing and communicating the cause of the breach as soon as possible to those affected.

-- They believe that the number of customers affected is low relative to the volume of sales transactions made.

-- However, if you believe fraudulent charges have been made to your credit card after making a purchase with any portals for the G.I. Joe or Transformers Collectors' Clubs, we urge you to contact Fun Publications immediately and provide them with the information requested at or by using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of these pages.

-- Fun Publications can also be reached at the following number for additional consumer affairs inquiries relating to the G.I. Joe and Transformers Collectors' Clubs at (817) 448-9863 during regular business hours.

-- As more information becomes available, they will be contacting all affected customers who have notified them about the issue.

Thank you again to all of the fans of our Transformers and G.I. Joe brands for their continued support and for the opportunity to respond to this matter.

Sincerely,

Joe Moscone
on behalf of Hasbro, Inc.

Credit(s): Hasbro

This article was last modified on Monday, March 5th, 2012 1:12pm CST

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Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355123)
Posted by Delicon on March 5th, 2012 @ 12:43pm CST

I applaud Hasbro for making a public statement on this matter, although the line below is pretty appalling to me.

Hasbro wrote:-- They believe that the number of customers affected is low relative to the volume of sales transactions made.

If you're talking about the last year, then maybe but since February...YIKES.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355124)
Posted by Jelze Bunnycat on March 5th, 2012 @ 12:44pm CST

In short, Hasbro is sticking its head in the sand.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355128)
Posted by Seibertron on March 5th, 2012 @ 1:01pm CST

Delicon wrote:I applaud Hasbro for making a public statement on this matter, although the line below is pretty appalling to me.

Hasbro wrote:-- They believe that the number of customers affected is low relative to the volume of sales transactions made.

If you're talking about the last year, then maybe but since February...YIKES.

I hope Hasbro understands that that can't be true. It appears all of our account and payment information was stored in a local database. The entire database would have been hacked. Either the hackers would have grabbed all of the info or none of it. It was just sitting out in the open, as far as hackers would be concerned. Anyone who had used a credit card with them in the past few years was affected.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355131)
Posted by RiddlerJ on March 5th, 2012 @ 1:09pm CST

I demand free toys!

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355138)
Posted by Heavy B on March 5th, 2012 @ 1:35pm CST

RiddlerJ wrote:I demand free toys!

I demand a G2 ramjet. Even though no charges were made on my card, and I canceled said card (awaiting a new one...) but damn I want Ramjet

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355140)
Posted by Genocide G2.0 on March 5th, 2012 @ 1:40pm CST

Just another message full of whitenoise, give us a free botcon exclusive and it might just take the sting away.....hmmm or would that be another kick in the teeth.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355142)
Posted by Tigertrack on March 5th, 2012 @ 1:42pm CST

I guess I don't know what I was expecting, but more corporate BS when I had two credit cards tank because of this was not it.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355143)
Posted by madplanet on March 5th, 2012 @ 1:44pm CST

It is too bad that the whole story is not being shared/told. Still it is bad to hear that ex members were getting hit also.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355146)
Posted by Daggor on March 5th, 2012 @ 1:49pm CST

Not only does the "not too many were hit" line sting, the Fun Pub logo next to the Hasbro logo amplifies the fact that Fun Pub's logo is terrible. It is an uninspired imitation of the Hasbro logo done in, perhaps, Microsoft Word. Terrible. Unprofessional. Appropriate.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355153)
Posted by Rated X on March 5th, 2012 @ 2:08pm CST

As much as I love bashing Hasbro, Im gonna side with them on this issue. Even Alcatraz security was breached at one point. Pointing fingers is not important anymore. What is more important is making sure it never happens again. And also to reimburse those who were affected. Maybe a free years membership would be appropiate. It's not like every time somebody hacks people's info from a gas pump or ATM machine do you get an official company statement. Life goes on...

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355158)
Posted by Tigertrack on March 5th, 2012 @ 2:17pm CST

Rated X wrote:As much as I love bashing Hasbro, Im gonna side with them on this issue. Even Alcatraz security was breached at one point. Pointing fingers is not important anymore. What is more important is making sure it never happens again. And also to reimburse those who were affected. Maybe a free years membership would be appropiate. It's not like every time somebody hacks a gas pump or ATM do you get an official company statement. Life goes on...

So SONY was not issuing all kinds of warnings and public statements when they got jacked? I think they were.

One years membership $40, credit card fraud charges $4000. Hmmm... Not that most cc companies won't remove the charges if you can prove that it is fraud. If they won't you should get a new card.

Moving on for some after this is easy. For others whose finances are a but more crunched...not so much.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355161)
Posted by Kibble on March 5th, 2012 @ 2:23pm CST

I think the Club should give their customers the same thing TFsource did after their multiple fiascoes...

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355169)
Posted by AutobotCliffjumper on March 5th, 2012 @ 2:37pm CST

Hasbro wrote:-- They believe that the number of customers affected is low relative to the volume of sales transactions made.

Seriously? Pull your heads out of the sand! Plenty of people got hit. It's unbelievable that the amount of customers affected were "low". Poppycock!

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355172)
Posted by Seibertron on March 5th, 2012 @ 2:49pm CST

tigertracks 24 wrote:
Rated X wrote:As much as I love bashing Hasbro, Im gonna side with them on this issue. Even Alcatraz security was breached at one point. Pointing fingers is not important anymore. What is more important is making sure it never happens again. And also to reimburse those who were affected. Maybe a free years membership would be appropiate. It's not like every time somebody hacks a gas pump or ATM do you get an official company statement. Life goes on...

So SONY was not issuing all kinds of warnings and public statements when they got jacked? I think they were.

One years membership $40, credit card fraud charges $4000. Hmmm... Not that most cc companies won't remove the charges if you can prove that it is fraud. If they won't you should get a new card.

Moving on for some after this is easy. For others whose finances are a but more crunched...not so much.

It's not about whether or not other companies have had similar issues. One of the major problems with all of this is that simple steps were not taken to protect our information. It was due to their negligence that this happened. Our passwords weren't even protected ... that's some pretty basic stuff right there. If care couldn't be had to protect our passwords, how could we expect that our credit card information was protected. The fandom has complained about the late 1990s style website for quite some time ... this was the consequence of their website not being updated properly circa 2006 to use modern standards and modern requirements that the credit card companies have in order to be PCI compliant.

Big companies get hacked because they are big targets. I'd imagine the hackers who gained entrance to the systems that huge companies like iTunes and Sony use are hackers on the cutting edge of figuring out where security holes are. Big companies such as those two most likely do not have our passwords just sitting around unencrypted and they are most likely PCI Compliant. Comparing what happened due to the negligence of Fun Pub is apples and oranges to what has happened to the larger companies.

Even your passwords on Seibertron.com are encrypted ... there's no way for me to decrypt the passwords here.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355176)
Posted by Seibertron on March 5th, 2012 @ 2:51pm CST

Kibble wrote:I think the Club should give their customers the same thing TFsource did after their multiple fiascoes...

Have any of you considered that TFsource only had one situation. From what I understood, the second situation was never actually tied to TFsource. Perhaps the second issue which people assumed came from TFsource actually came from another source that we all regularly use.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355177)
Posted by Rated X on March 5th, 2012 @ 2:52pm CST

tigertracks 24 wrote:
Rated X wrote:As much as I love bashing Hasbro, Im gonna side with them on this issue. Even Alcatraz security was breached at one point. Pointing fingers is not important anymore. What is more important is making sure it never happens again. And also to reimburse those who were affected. Maybe a free years membership would be appropiate. It's not like every time somebody hacks a gas pump or ATM do you get an official company statement. Life goes on...

So SONY was not issuing all kinds of warnings and public statements when they got jacked? I think they were.

One years membership $40, credit card fraud charges $4000. Hmmm... Not that most cc companies won't remove the charges if you can prove that it is fraud. If they won't you should get a new card.

Moving on for some after this is easy. For others whose finances are a but more crunched...not so much.

All Im saying is credit card fraud happens every day. You discover it, report the charges to your company and get them removed, and get a new card. That's the credit card companies job. They take the hit. They make billions in interest on people who cant pay their bills in full. What else can Hasbro and Funpub do except issue a statement and request information to help track down the theif ? But It seems Transformer fans are expecting a free handout. Thats why I suggested a years membership free. $40 bucks is more than enough reimbursment for making a few annoying phone calls and cancelling a card.

If you write your own checks and review your monthly balance before you pay, any fradulaunt charge should be detected and removed before any hassle. If you pay $4000 in charges and then review your statement after you paid, youre fault. That's why I dont authorize my bank to make any automatic payments. It's not the banks job to catch fake charges, it's mine.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355181)
Posted by Joetx on March 5th, 2012 @ 3:09pm CST

I've twice ordered merchandise from Fun Publications, yet my credit card info was stolen & I had to cancel my account.

This happened despite me not checking the option of storing my credit card info on the website.

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355185)
Posted by Kibble on March 5th, 2012 @ 3:21pm CST

Seibertron wrote:Have any of you considered that TFsource only had one situation. From what I understood, the second situation was never actually tied to TFsource. Perhaps the second issue which people assumed came from TFsource actually came from another source that we all regularly use.

If you believe that you should be giving TFCC the same benefit of doubt because the supporting evidence is about equal. Every one of my local crew that used a card at TFsource got hit. I never used a card w/ TFsource and I didn't get hit, but I did use my card w/ PSN which some were looking to blame it on. Others that ONLY used their card w/ TFsource and nothing else were hit. At least TFCC is owning up to it, though...

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355187)
Posted by Seibertron on March 5th, 2012 @ 3:23pm CST

Kibble wrote:
Seibertron wrote:Have any of you considered that TFsource only had one situation. From what I understood, the second situation was never actually tied to TFsource. Perhaps the second issue which people assumed came from TFsource actually came from another source that we all regularly use.

If you believe that you should be giving TFCC the same benefit of doubt because the supporting evidence is about equal. Every one of my local crew that used a card at TFsource got hit. I never used a card w/ TFsource and I didn't get hit, but I did use my card w/ PSN which some were looking to blame it on. Others that ONLY used their card w/ TFsource and nothing else were hit. At least TFCC is owning up to it, though...

Are you referring to the incident that happened around January 2010 or April 2011?

Re: Official message from Hasbro to Transformers and G.I. Joe fan communities regarding Fun Publications (1355191)
Posted by Kibble on March 5th, 2012 @ 3:26pm CST

April 2011...same time frame as PSN.

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