Another email from the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club has gone out with more information about your membership and the new store!  I have copied it below.

“Hello and thanks for your patience.  We have come a long way since we turned off the stores approximately two weeks ago.

For those of you who are interested in the ongoing investigation, our original server has been taken offline and will be undergoing an investigation over the coming days.  The current server online is a clone of the original with all of the critical data removed.  If we find a reasonable cause for the security issue, we will let you know.

We have decided to change our store and forum software.  It has been many tedious hours converting the existing data to work with our new store.  All the membership data is loaded in the store.  The forum will be brought online at a later date.

With our new store software, we have figured out a way to extend the deadline a few days.  This means that everyone’s April magazine will run 7-10 days late.   Our new cutoff date and time is Wednesday March 21, 2012 at 5pm Central Time.

The store has been brought online before its completion to allow renewals and new memberships.  All of the features are not implemented at this time.   We apologize for the length of this email but there is a lot of new information that affects all members.

PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ THROUGH THIS THOROUGHLY BEFORE YOU TAKE ANY ACTION.  Here are the parameters for the new store:

1.  Each membership must have its own UNIQUE email account.

2.  Your store log in is the email address that this message came to.  Your password is the same as the one you have been using at the former club store and forum.  If you have forgotten your password, you can use the “remember me” function.  It only sends your password to your email account; it does not send your login.

3.  If you have a change of address, until further notice, please call our office or send an email to admin2@funpubinc.com or admin@funpubinc.com.   We are running two systems in parallel until we are satisfied that the data is identical.  Please email Customer Service as much as possible as the more they are on the phone, the less time they have to respond to your needs. Customer Service is available from 9:30-4:30 Central Time weekdays.

4.  In order to bring this system online, we have not separated the Transformers and G.I. Joe Clubs into their individual online stores.  At this time, both TF and Joe Club members will use the same storefront to place your renewals or new memberships.

5.  Please look at the bottom of this email.  It has your renewal date.  If your date is prior to March 16, 2012, you will need to create a NEW account in the store, as we did not transfer your data.   If your date is after March 16, 2012, you don’t need to do anything at this time.

Please let only those who need a membership renewal or new membership use the store for now.  In a couple of weeks, we will have everyone start checking their account(s).  In addition, please note that we will be discontinuing the Trooper Level membership in the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club.

6.  Please note that if you had multiple memberships in your name; multiple memberships that all came to a single email address; or a membership in each club, we had to replace all but one of your email addresses with a dummy address.  The new store requires unique email addresses for each membership.  Your email and password will only work for one account.  You will need to contact Customer Service to look up your other logins (dummy emails).  This will enable you to change the login and modify your accounts if you want to have multiple accounts or accounts in both clubs.

7.  When you renew or signup for a new account, you need to select your free figure choice.  The selection choices are found on the signup page  (Transformers members please select the “none” option.   G.I. Joe members, please select 12” or 3 ¾”.

8.  Please note that this store is a commercial package that has hundreds of merchants working with the same store software.  It has features that will be new to us, but until we have some custom programming done, there are a few features that are missing from our old software.   This is a totally different service provider and data storage facility than we have used in the past.  One of the features this software has is to automatically renew your membership without you doing anything (provided you have a valid credit card on file).  If you don’t want your credit information on file (the CVV2 code is never saved after the transaction), you can log in under the  “My Account” feature and delete your card on file.  In order to make future purchases or renewals, you will have to come back to the store and enter your information.

9. The URL for the new store is https://toyarama.com/store.  At a future date, we will split the stores back into an individual store for both the Transformers and G.I. Joe Collectors’ Clubs.

10.  As an additional security measure, please change your password when you log into your membership account.  Do not use any password that you use with other stores or financial institutions.

We apologize for any inconvenience that the prior security issue has caused.   On a side note, we are anticipating that the event registration software will be back online around the end of the month.  If you have any questions, please use the email links at the bottom of all of our web pages and we will provide you with a prompt answer.

Thanks for your support,

Fun Publications Staff”

Great news for the Club and for us as well!  Looks like things are ironing themselves out and moving along.  Keep your eyes peeled here for all the information as it develops.