Will not buy from Tadgear again

W

Westflorida

BANNED
Feedback: +21 / =1 / -4
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Jan 28, 2001
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My personal information was stolen about a month and a half ago and all types of stuff was bought with my debit card around the worl in a matter of minutes! I had no idea how this information was taken until I get this e-mail yesterday from Tadgear.



I am sorry but I do not need an e-mail telling me how to keep my personal information ecure, it was Tadgear that did not have a secure website and the info was stolen. I e-mailed and was never replied to, all I asked was to be informed if the person who stole the info was identified so i could let BofA and local law enforcement know.



That's real nice Tadgear gives me the info for Equifax, Experian, etc. But that costs money. Why should I have to pay to check my credit when Tadgear screwed up?



Several years ago Hartford Insurance lost info on some customers (including me) and provided everyone a year of Equifax (which they paid for) and $100,000 in insurance. Does Tadgear not have any insurance on their business?
 
I bought a knife online in the spring and recieved a notice in the mail that this transaction had been rerouted and my info may be in jeopardy. Well low and behold just a month ago mastercard called me about a suspicious transaction of 2 cents to some place i never heard of...whoever had my number was testing it first, thankfully mastercard watches this stuff and they blocked that transaction and got me a new number. I got free credit monitoring for a year out of the ordeal so all is good i suppose.
It wasn't really the vendor's fault i guess...I still tend to blame the dirty shit bags who do this stuff more than the victims..ie us and the vendors trying to run an honest biz. Blaming the victim(in this case you or tadgear) is like trying to blame a rape victim for dressing too sexy. You got F'd, tadgear got F'd, let it go. crime sucks.
 
Blaming the victim(in this case you or tadgear) is like trying to blame a rape victim for dressing too sexy. You got F'd, tadgear got F'd, let it go. crime sucks.
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I agree. Do you know for a fact that Tadgear had an unsecure site ? Sometimes these guys get into secure sites also.
 
If I owned a business and did not properly protect my customers information, I would tell them what I was going to do to handle it and protect their information, not tell them what they should do.

Now I have to go and buy some subscription to see if someone has stolen my personal info because Tadgear did not protect it correctly.
 
To add more information to this topic, I received an email from TADGear yesterday, 11/20/09, which I'm guessing is the same email Westflorida got. It said that if you ordered any merchandise from them online between August 6, 2009 and November 16, 2009, your personal information may have been compromised. Coincidentally enough, I had a fraudulent charge of $38.95 on my CC that I just finally finished the fraud paperwork for yesterday, the same day I received this email. The bank kept hounding me as to how the person(s) in question obtained my CC info, and until yesterday I had no idea. I suppose I can't be 100% sure, but according to their email and this post, others have had the same problem. Thankfully I caught the charge early enough that I was able to cancel that CC and have my bank issue me a new #. Let's hope it doesn't go any further than that.

I don't mean to blast TADGear, but I would tend to agree with the idea that there website should have been more secure. I definitely appreciate that they sent an email to their customers alerting us of this problem; I definitely appreciate that they took such quick action to supposedly fix their site upon learning of the situation. It makes me scratch my head though in trying to figure out how their website was breached, and none of the other 20 or so websites I've made purchases from in the last year were ever breached (as far as I know). Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but it makes me very nervous to buy from them again. I'd like to think they are doing everything in their power to protect my information, but how did their site get hacked in the first place? How do I know it's not going to happen again? To me - and you can have your own opinion - but to me, it is not worth the risk to order from them again.

Their suggestion of putting fraud alerts on your credit files can be done for free. You can receive a copy of your credit report free from www.annualcreditreport.com as well. I also recommend that you keep a close eye on charges to your existing credit card(s) as well, particularly the card(s) you may have used with TADGear.
 
My perspective is a bit different. I received the same message from TAD. I appreciated receiving it and I think it was a responsible thing for TAD to do even though it is, in this case, getting them some bad press.

I had the same thing happen a couple of years ago from a different on-line retailer and the first thing I knew about it was when the credit card company froze my account because of some charges that didn't look right to them. I was pretty sure I knew which site my information had been stolen from, but they never owned up to it.

A couple of computer security folks I know, and my daughter who works at a bank, have told me that the banks/companies do not like to tell their customers when stuff like this happens because the customers lose confidence in the outfit's ability to protect their money or personal information. They would rather just fix the problem and not tell anyone about it.

That is why I give kudos to TAD for having the guts to admit the problem. Not many folks would have done the same thing.
 
I received the sam E-mail from TAD Gear. Things happen. Yesterday I went to my bank and got a new card. I have a temp. one in the mean time. Will this keep me from shopping at TAD Gear? No, it won't. This could have happened to any business.
 
Last year, my Visa card was replicated, used and maxed out in Quebec. Visa's fraud department called to inform me, but I knew something was wrong when I could not pay for my child's dental work. I asked the agent where the card had been compromised, but she would not tell me: "It is part of an on-going investigation." She did say it was Visa's problem and not mine. It was mine in part, though, because it took a long time to clean up. One transaction was in dispute for eight months because the merchant would not get respond to Visa's investigation.

The sign that something was wrong was a gas charge two weeks before all of the other fraudulent charges.

Joe
 
My husband for some strange reason seems reluctant to bash Tadgear. However; I don't seem to have these "restrictions".

I have three words for all of you: California Attorney General.

Tad gear knew it had website problems. In fact people brought this up over two months ago on another forum. In the case of my husband, he bought something from Tad on 11/2 and was notified by our credit card company of fraudulent charges on 11/9. Noticing a thread (in another forum) concerning credit card fraud my husband did some "searching" and virtually every poster in that thread had made a purchase at Tad gear immediately prior to the fraud activity on their account.

Being the nice guy that he is, my husband, rather than publicly posting this info, decided to call Tad Gear and pass it along. Tad told him, and this is on 11/10 mind you, that they "are aware of a problem with site security". Why then I ask, was their online ordering not shut down until OVER A WEEK LATER????

I agree that Tad never intended for this to happen and also probably made good efforts to keep their site secure. It's also great that Tad did finally decide to notify customers as required by California law. However; it is inexcusable that TAD Gear continued to take online orders and failed to notify customers of this problem AFTER THEY BECAME AWARE OF THE ISSUE. Clearly, they have known about this for at least 10 days before their announcement, more likely since the end of September.
In light of TAD's willfull misconduct it is also inexcusable that they are not paying for credit monitoring services. Clearly Tad Gear's priorities in this situation have been to try and maintain their order flow, rather than truly caring about their customers.

Again, I don't think it's necessarily Tad's fault that this happened, there was certainly nothing intentional here. It's how the situation is dealt with after the problem is acknowledged which sets companies apart.

Remember: California Attorney General.....
 
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Accepting online orders when they knew their site was compromised is unconscionable. Do I hear class action lawsuit..?
 
Don't use charge cards. The money is taken directly from your bank account. Even if you dispute successfully the fraudulent charges, you may end up with bounced checks and without your money for a while.

If you use credit cards you are safe. Check carefully your charges when you receive the bill and dispute the fraudulent charges immediately. I had my cc number stolen couple of times with thousands of dollars in fraudulent charges. Never had to pay one cent. By the way, both times the cc number was stolen by a cashier.

Mt father in law had his cc stolen from his mail box, also ended up with thousands of dollars in fraudulent charges. The matter was resolved very quickly and painlessly. Bottom line is that the cc is the safest way to spend money.

Funny but true: one of the fraudulent charges on my cc was for a side of beef. The thief was dumb enough to have it delivered to her address. Some people...:D

By the way, for a successful identity theft the crook needs you ssn. Remember that you name, address, and phone number are public records already. You don't give your ssn when you purchase anything, do you? :D
 
Sorry about your experience. I don't know that I'd blame any particular retailer though. This is an unfortunately common crime these days.

But what I particularly wanted to comment on was this:

Westflorida said:
That's real nice Tadgear gives me the info for Equifax, Experian, etc. But that costs money. Why should I have to pay to check my credit when Tadgear screwed up?
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If you're in the US, you are entitled to one free credit report per year from each reporting agency. Just use the contact info provided to you and ask for it. This is for true for everybody, not just those who have reason to believe they have been compromised.
 
thumbstud said:
Accepting online orders when they knew their site was compromised is unconscionable. Do I hear class action lawsuit..?
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They never accepted orders when they knew their website was compromised. When they were told they had been breached they shut it down and took immediate action. it is easy to speculate from a virtual venue when you don't have the facts...we were not there so we don't know. But I have met all the people there and they are 100% standup folks...considering less than 17% of companies who get breached even report it...they went above and beyond by posting a notice and sending out actual letters to every customer...I know cause I got one.
 
wingsofthunder said:
They never accepted orders when they knew their website was compromised. When they were told they had been breached they shut it down and took immediate action. it is easy to speculate from a virtual venue when you don't have the facts...we were not there so we don't know. But I have met all the people there and they are 100% standup folks...considering less than 17% of companies who get breached even report it...they went above and beyond by posting a notice and sending out actual letters to every customer...I know cause I got one.
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they didn't send letters to every customer, I didn't get any letter or email. I read it on the forums. hopefully I am not affected as I didn't order anything during August-Nov. banks over here do not give any protection, not until the law was changed earlier this month, and that too only for the amounts above $70 (the equivalent in local currency) and you have to prove no negligence on your part. US-folks may have lots of consumer-oriented laws but some of us out of US don't.

I do hope no one has to bear fraudulent charges...sincerely.
 
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