I walked up to purchase flip flops…
…flip flops for my daughter and the gal who took my card told me it was declined.
Now, I remember the day I picked 12 new ties for work, only to find out the amount I had left on my credit card only supported buying 2 ties. But that was back when I used credit cards, and back when I was 20.
There was no way that I didn't have funds in my account. These days I know my balance, check my account every other day, and only spend what's in my bank account (no credit cards).
So I was frustrated. For sure. But I pulled out my other debit card (I have two account) and paid.
Later, a call to the bank told me that they suspected fraud on my account. They had stopped several charges (including my good attempt at flip flops). They were reversing a couple. And they were shipping me a new card asap.
You know what bothered me the most? I had to go to several websites and change my card info, so that I could make online purchases easy/fast.
It gets worse!
Within a week of getting my new card, I got another declined notice trying to buy some movies on iTunes. WHAT??
You guessed it – the new card had been compromised already. Which meant doing all the same stuff all over again.
- Cancel charges.
- Reverse charges.
- Ship a new card.
- Change all online vendors to new card.
I had no idea how it was happening. Until I got an email from WooThemes telling me they had had some issues.
I'll be honest. I wasn't happy. But this is the world we live in these days – from Target to online vendors – this is the new attack vector.
And thankfully, I had a bank (Chase) that had some rigorous monitoring on my account. Additionally, I'm a creature of habit, so it was pretty easy to see which charges really were mine and which weren't. The process for rejecting those charges was almost automatic and surely painless.
Today WooThemes gave us another update
These guys have been working hard to monitor everything. They've been responsive to customers and have kept all of us in the loop.
They've made changes and currently send users to Paypal (offsite) to make payments, just to be sure there aren't any other issues.
And most importantly, they've highlighted that the issue wasn't with the WooCommerce plugin itself. Good news, given how much it's grown it's community over the last couple of years.
And in that last update, they announced a new coupon code for 50% off.
Putting $814 worth of WooCommerce extensions into my cart
Of course, with the coupon code, I received $407 worth of discount on my order. Now, seriously, that's not bad at all. Is it?
But let's get back to the point of this article. Why would I do that?
First, I make this assumption: everyone will have issues.
Years before anyone regulated the need to notify us, companies that used credit cards had issues. These days we have to be notified. So we notice it more.
But banks, retail stores and everyone inbetween have sent me letters telling my my data may have been compromised. Welcome to the world we live in.
It's not like I can convince my wife to never walk into Target again. So she can't tell me not to go to WooThemes again.
The truth is that I'll shop there again. Because I like what they produce.
Second, I shift my focus: my bank is the one I trust to protect me.
In the end, I expect people to try to break into eCommerce sites. They'd be stupid to try to break into chrislema.co when woothemes.com is available to them. Right? But in the end, it's my bank (Chase) that gets all my transactions and monitors things.
Years ago I was with Wells Fargo and underwhelmed by their fraud protection. I know it's been getting better every year, but I like how Chase does it. They routinely send me text messages to verify transactions that aren't routine for me. I get to approve/reject them via text.
So shopping again at WooThemes doesn't worry me. Chase has my back.
Lastly, I look at my clients: they still have needs.
I've been a customer for over 5 years. I like their team. I like their products. For large, complex projects I almost always use WooCommerce. And their being attacked doesn't change any of that.
More importantly, my customer's needs won't change. They'll still need complexity that often can only be handled by WooCommerce. So it makes sense to keep working with them to deliver value to customers.
Oh, and did I mention they offered a 50% discount coupon?