Ever have a credit card number stolen???

I dont see PayPal as a Payment Option on their site. (I just looked). I was also hit.

 

I completely agree. It is obvious, though, that his question, no matter how many times he asks, will go unanswered. That was my point.

 

Correct.

In spite of the repeated beat-down attempts from several members and one moderator, we still have not received confirmation/clarification from AHB about these conflicting statements yet.

 

That is how I have always bought from them. You cannot see the option until you are logged in and in the final steps of checkout.

 

Then please respect the fact that some of us still want answers from AHB about their conflicting statements. Just because you feel satisfied with how this has been handled so far doesn't make it so for the rest of us.

Thank you.

 

Then be content to wait, everyones feelings have been more than explained. Posting the same tired info ad nauseam won't get answers any faster.

That's assuming Forrest even cares to explain things, I could care less. There was a breach, he's fixing it, end of story for me.


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At this point, I'd propose that if you haven't had your card compromised then stop adding to the traffic in the thread. Me included. I'm mainly interested from a business perspective on how this happened. Forrest is reading the thread and is the only one really qualified to answer to the affected folks.

 

As I stated previously, I am content to wait for AHB to complete their investigation. Nobody is attacking anything or anyone as the AHB fan club would have you believe.

Today I've only been responding to the false statements others have been making about my own desire for basic answers from AHB.

I'm chilled. I hope you can call your dogs off and chill some too. Then we can all be chilled together. That would be awesome.

 

I ordered from AHBS and my card got hit. Hell I used a gift certificate from AHBS that was bought in the store, and still got hit because I had to gove my CC info. What ever is found to have been the cause in the end will help everyone in the long run to make sure everyone involved knows what to watch for in the future.
I think AHBS is a pretty kick ass store. I live in Dallas and I have ordered from them online, and been in the store in Austin. That being said I am not a member of the AHBS fan club - meaning im not posting to say stop ass whipping AHBS OR Bashing them. What I am saying is that it would be more helpful if people posted things that helped get to the bottom of this quciker rather than arguing over BS that doesnt pertain to the situation.

Why get on a brewing forum to argue about something other than beer? Especially when you dont have a dog in the hunt?

 

Good luck with that!

 

Obviuosly, you are one of the FANBOYS I speak of. It doesn't matter where the leak of information is, he is Culpable, responsible, whatever you want to call it. There are just too many people here who haven't been impacted by this that continue to spew crap like this post. I am done with this thread.

 

So what if he does?

Ever shop at WalMart? How about Lowes?

Try this, go buy something from either of those two and then go back the next day to return it.

I bet they don't ask for the card or CC number to credit the return to your account. You gonna boycott them too?

 

If I forget my receipt when returning stuff at lowes, they just scan my card, and all the purchases made on it for the last 90 days show up... That's a convenience for me.. I have no reason to believe that they would intentionally harm me, and that they value my business...

If one of their employees or their CC vendor were to compromise my card.. I would not 'blame' the company, but I would expect them to make things right (responsibility)...

 

It's obvious Forrest doesn't intend to respond to your question. How many times to you intend to chew your cabbage? To continue to ask is simply petulance.

 

This is a volatile thread, and I suspect this will be my first and last post on the topic. I ordered from AHS a little more than a week ago. The next day Visa called me to ask about a $500+ charge from a pharmacy in the UK. No, not my charge. Cards canceled and re-issued. What a pain! Got an email two days ago from AHS saying they were going to change their credit card processing company. Um...OK great, but there are other places to buy beer making supplies and I don't have to make phone calls to the bank and get cards re-issued when I buy from them. Best of luck fixing your business, AHS. Maybe I'll try you again in a year or two.

 

I like how its okay to discuss freakishly hoppy jumper cables to your nipples beer for 985posts, but people get pissed for a few posts I write about some hacker ripping of my CC when I bought something from AHB.

 

Well, they got me. Got a call from the fraud department of my credit union. They intercepted a charge for over $500 going to a place called "New Clear Blast" some kind of computer hardware outfit. as I was talking to them, I logged into my account, and there was another $580 charge made this morning to " Old Skull Skateboards" in New York

Now here is the deal. My debit card is pretty new, mabee 2 months since I was hit at the Chi Company.

I have not made any purchases from Austin Home Brew

I have made recent purchases from BargainFittings,Brewhardware, and Keg Cowboy, all this month.

Excuse me for saying this, but I have a hunch.......and I have no Idea how it works, that somehow they are stalking people who purchase from vendors on this site. Having it happen to me twice, in 2 different timeframes, from 2 completely different vendors seems a bit suspicious to me . Hopefully I can recover my $580.

 

Assuming the breach was not internal to AHS, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a wave of activity against homebrew businesses. Once one company gets hit and it's fairly easy to break in, the natural response will be to try another similar business. Lots of homebrew shops online have fairly basic websites that suggest there's not a lot of sophisticated security going on and I imagine a lot of HBS do process credit card transactions manually as they fill the order.

The people who seem to do this work in waves. For example, my mom is big into scrapbooking and apparently there are a lot of forums where they share information. The forums all got hacked and lots of people had their email addresses and other accounts hacked into. It all happened in a matter of months.

Where you have a niche market with a generally laid back atmosphere and unsophisticated businesses (not said with offense) executing relatively small numbers of transactions, it's easy to find vulnerabilities and steal information without substantial security or a real concern that the authorities are going to get involved in any meaningful way.

 

has anyone correlated the hits to premium member status? maybe that is the connecting thread! what it the breach is with HBT Premium Membership sales?! wouldn't that be something!? maybe hefeluver is onto something.

 

my membership was not paid for with the card that was compromised.

 

1. They are storing the numbers in a way that rank and file floor employees can not access them, this is different to one of the two mutually exclusive claims Austin Homebrew Supply made.

2. They have not made mutually exclusive claims to their customers about this practice.

So those are two salient differences.

 

They got mine too. And yes, I also purchased from AHS. The charges showed up as 'British Gas'.

This sucks because I really like AHS but if they dont have their act together I wont shop there again unless I'm in Austin and have cash

 

I likely will not renew my premium membership due to this thread. I know HBT had nothing to do with the stolen CC #'s, but early on in this thread txbrew was deleting some posts that were calling for AHB to open up about what was going on and not deny that purchases from them were the source of the problem (my post included). He deemed them "off topic".

Additionally, last week I sent txbrew two PM's with questions regarding getting a lifetime membership which he has never replied to both! What the hell is up with that?



.

 

Prior to having my card stolen as a result of buying from AHS I have never had my information compromised and have been making online purchases since early 2000. I am also a member of various hobby message boards and I have never seen anything remotely close to what has happened here. I have never witnessed more than one person having their card compromised from the same location. Certainly not the hundreds we see here.

Not laying blame just stating the facts. The degree of this issue is not normal or a byproduct of the freedom to purchase online with a card. It is an unusual level of compromise affecting an unusual amount of connected people.

 

"Not laying blame just stating the facts. The degree of this issue is not normal or a byproduct of the freedom to purchase online with a card. It is an unusual level of compromise affecting an unusual amount of connected people.[/QUOTE]

It's really not that rare. The card numbers were hacked from a large (and very popular on this site) home brew store. People are talking about it on a home brew forum. There is going to be a lot of over lap.

This was from an ABC News story from December.

"Criminals charged $15 billion to stolen credit card accounts in 2008, up from $12 billion the year before, according to California-based financial security consultants Javelin Strategy & Research."

 

Today a buddy (non homebrewer) told me that his bank is issuing him a new card because of some nationwide CC hack. His bank told him Mastercard just notified them yesterday.... Doesn't seem to get any results on google search though....

 

Like I said, I dont believe this is an AHBS problem. It's deeper than that. I have NEVER made any purchase from AHBS

 

its really not as uncommon as you think. remember the tjmaxx card fiasco? millions of numbers taken from their systems, stop&shop had card swipers on some of their checkout terminals at one point, affected everyone who shopped there. if anything things that card stealing is typically an isolated incident, they are misinformed. for efficiency sake, it is far better to steal thousands or millions of numbers than one at a time.

 

Happened to me too, my opinion is this is no big deal. My wife had her credit hacked in December, happens all the time. I will continue to do business with Austin Home Brew without hesitation!

I was really impressed with fraud protection at AMEX, someone was spending my cash in the UK so they gave me a call and shut it down right now. A new card was delivered the next day, less than 24 hours I might add, very impressive.

Unfortunately, that's the digital world we live in now. What are you going to do, grow your own grain and hops and stay off the grid?

Peace

 

Looking at my statement the other day I realized I had a purchase from Northern Brewer during this same time period. Not sure there is anything to it, but my new card is on the way. The last time one of my cards were hacked my credit card company never notified me, but this card company was right on top of it. As has been said before if you can avoid it don't use a debit card online.

 

I have had my card for over 7 years and this is the first time it has ever been hacked.

Btw...thanks for the email Forrest...glad you guys got that out finally.

 

Strangely enough, I still have not receive that email

 

We used emails from the orders placed. If you changed email addresses since you opened the account or you specifically requested not to recieve emails from us it would not have gone through.

The email was posted on this thread.

Forrest

 

Capital One must be wise to this. They mailed me a letter stating my information had been compromised via a 3rd party but wouldn't say who.

They canceled my account and issued me a new card even though i had no fraudulent charges and my last order with AHS was in December before this all started. Guess they are playing it safe.

 

Their a good company, always on the ball. My cards been "borrowed" twice, they caught it both times before the charges even went through.


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My wife just got a new card with new numbers yesterday and she most definitely did not shop at AHS. I think a major processor got hacked.

 

My wife's been giving out her digits to everybody. It's not helping things at all.

 

I realize credit card fraud is common. There is a group here seemingly trivializing this incident comparing it to waiters stealing numbers. I am just stating that this incident is much more significant in number of affected people and degree of compromise comparatively speaking. I am sure there are bigger hacks in history but this incident is not run of the mill in my experience as a credit card user and forum member. If it was truly the processor that was hacked, that is extremely noteworthy and hard to believe the news hasn't covered that issue since numerous other businesses would be affected. I imagine it is also a pretty technologically advanced thing to accomplish. Much more so than installing some script kiddie malware on a terminal.

 

This incident is extremely run-of-the-mill based on your being a member of this forum and owning a credit card. This is a homebrewing forum, that means that there is a high percentage of people (~100%) on the forum who shop at homebrew stores. If a homebrew store's data or processing company gets compromised, then a high percentage of forum members will be affected.

Nothing strange at all about that.

 

I dunno - here is a link that reports 99 people arrested, who scammed an estimated $20 MILLION.

Yes - i know it has nothing to do with the current fraud, but the crime and my point are the same.

My point is, this article is published TODAY - on an off the beaten path website - I have not seen it on any "major" news site yet.

SO I dunno if something would be widely reported or not - it could be the fear it would create would cause such a stampede of panic ( i.e. - 800 of the last 1000 posts in this thread ) that it public can't handle it.

I dunno.