Good for Midwest - mystery solved!

[jswordy]

A few months back, I tried to use my credit card to buy some filters and brake pads at a local auto parts store. Card was no good. Called the bank, they said they had put a stop on it because the number had been compromised. Had to wait for a new number, etc., kinda inconvenient. I wondered where it was stolen.

Yesterday I got a letter from Midwest Supply. They said someone broke into their system about the time my card came up as stolen at my bank and my card may have been compromised. Um - Yep!

They were kind enough to provide me a $25 coupon for any inconvenience that caused. I have had other businesses notify me of possible credit card theft, but never one that also gave me a coupon to make amends.

I say good on Midwest!

 

[BernardSmith]

My experience with Midwest has always been excellent. They are good people.

 

[jamesngalveston]

jswordy, i got the same letter yesterday as my sister.....with the 25.00 coupon.
wrote them a letter thanking them, because as you...I have had my cc jacked before, but never a coupon for anything...nice of those guys.
in this day and age, any company can be hijacked.

 

[jamesngalveston]

forgot , they said it was somtimes around may 22 when i used mine there.

 

[Kraffty]

I had the same thing but it happened to be on a brand new card that only had two purchases on it, midwest and a local battery shop. I let them know they probably had a security problem but was told thanks for the heads up, but we're secure, good luck resolving it. While I appreciate the 25.00 coupon I'd be more inclined to resume shopping with them if the form letter talked about them changing credit card service vendors or changes the vendor made it light of the problem. I think mostly an email saying "we're sorry we didn't take your email to us seriously but now we do" would make me more inclined to shop with them again.
.... of course I'll have to buy at least 25.00 worth of something, but how to do it without giving them my new numbers.....
Mike

 

[jamesngalveston]

I just bought some bottle tags using my 25...just call them order something under 26.oo and give them the code thats on the letter they send you.
btw....
american express, bank of america, visa, liberty mutual,finance one,
atms,bank of california, 1st bank of texas, etc all have been compromised in
2012, 2013...does not matter what service vendors they use, they can hit all of them if they really wanted too.

 

[WI_Wino]

It's interesting to see the stark difference in WMT's member reaction to Midwest's admission of a credit card breach vs. HBT members.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/important-statement-midwest-supplies-429909/

 

[Kraffty]

WI Wino, thanks, nice read, but now I'm genuinely irritated with Midwest. I wrote them Aug 4th, they knew they had the problem in July and yet wrote back they didn't have an issue on their end. Looks like I'll start looking for a new supplier, great chance to use our supporting vendors here on this site. Even if the problem was "off site", flat out lying about it to a customer means the end of a business relationship to me.
I did order $24.86 including shipping worth of stuff but the order doesn't want to go through, waiting on a new card number I think. We'll see if they honor it or not.
Mike

 

[Midwest Vintner]

It might be possible that the person whom replied to you Kraffty didn't know there was a problem.

No matter how good your system is, there is someone who can crack it. Just the reality of things today. You should see the PCI-DSS questionnaire. I'm glad we only have 1 input into our system. Much easier to break into a web business than a retailer though.

 

[dessertmaker]

Glad to know they handled this so professionally. A workable solution for cc theft in general that my family has used quite often is to buy a pre paid credit card for online purchases and only reload it right before actual purchases.

Of course this didnt stop the butthole at the LSU bookstore from stealing my wife's debit card #. But hey it keeps our online purchases pretty safe.

 

[rob]

Yep, I got the same letter with the 25.00 coupon. They have always been good people to work with, to bad something like this has to happen

 

[Wade E]

They used to support us and I believe they still support HBT which is our sister site. I don't know all the circumstances nor do any of you unless you work there. I know for sure that I received a virus fro. Facebook a few years back and they didn't send me any coupon for the 3 hardrives it trashed.

 

[Julie]

,,,,,,,,
.... of course I'll have to buy at least 25.00 worth of something, but how to do it without giving them my new numbers.....
Mike

You could buy a pre-paid visa card and use that at Midwest.

 

[WI_Wino]

So coupon only applies to merchandise and shipping. Not tax. Had to put in my CC # to complete the order... Oh well.

 

[Jericurl]

I've had this happen to me before, most recently a yarn company.

You can read all about it here, but the gist of is this: A forum with a few million members noticed a disturbing trend right after the holidays last year. A ton of people had fraudulent charges start popping up on their debit/credit card accounts. Some were lucky enough to belong to a financial institution that pre-emptively cancelled their cards. People started putting two and two together, I mean, what are the odds that thousands of knitters would have this happen to them at the same time?
Yeah, a very well known yarn company had their information compromised and never breathed a word about it to the customers.

I almost exclusively use paypal now because of that. I put in an order with Midwest earlier this week and there is something wrong with their coding sequence so they wouldn't accept paypal as my payment (some type of script coding error). I had to use my card and was quite apprehensive about it.

I won't say this post allays my fears but it certainly shows that if anything happens Midwest will be stand up guys over it.
Good for them.

 

[Sammyk]

Think twice about Pay Pal, we had our account hacked. Took two years to get our credit rating straightened out....! No way would we ever have a Pay Pal account again.

 

[Jericurl]

Oh really??!

I thought that was the more foolproof way.
Agh!

 

[jamesngalveston]

pre paid visa works well, just add a few dollars more then what you want to spend.