by generalsjoes | Feb 29, 2012 | G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Collectors Club
In what is becoming an almost daily occurrence, Brian Savage from Fun Publications has sent out another notification email to members of both the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club and the Transformers Collectors’ Club, strongly encouraging everyone to not only cancel your credit cards, but also consider changing any common usernames or passwords you were using on their website or forums.
I cannot stress enough the importance of following this advice. The full text of the email is below.
As we continue to work on our systems, you will see some of our services go offline and then come back, so please be patient as we preserve data and clone servers and websites.
We are also taking this opportunity to remove all non-essential services from our ecomerce server. So in the short term in the next day or so, the club forums will be discontinued. It will be several days until we are ready to bring them back under an entierly new piece of software. I know alot of you have been asking for this so, we have decided to replace several of our systems with new packages. This means that you will not have access to the forum for a while at all. We do plan to make the old forum viewable (no posts) in the future.
Since we do not know exactly what data was taken, we are recommending that if your have used common logins or passwords with our system and any other system that your change your passwords in those systems immidiately (especially any financial sysstems)! We will be resetting all of the passwords in our system very soon. Please don’t delay in changing your passwords in other locations
In addition, we have found a few recent aticles concerning security issues with other vendors. If you use these services, these issues could possibly impact you. Please read the attached links:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/10/itunes-hack-unauthorized-charges-apple_n_1268593.html
http://www.greenpois0n.co/itunes-accounts-being-hacked-to-steal-money-from-store-credit.html
Thanks for your support in this difficult time. We will continue to work with our vendors to correct the issues and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused any of our members.
Brian Savage
by generalsjoes | Feb 27, 2012 | G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Collectors Club
With their credit card systems shut down while they investigate security problems, the G.I. Joe and Transformers Collectors’ Club have uploaded a PDF form to renew or sign up for memberships via check or money order.
The following email comes from Pete Sinclair.
“Hello!
We wanted to give you the latest update on the current procedure for membership renewals and NEW memberships. As we continue to work to resolve the online store issues, we have put up a PDF that members can download and print out. These will need to be mailed in with a check or money order. We will process your membership as soon as they arrive. Just click the “Join Now” button in the top right corner at www.gijoeclub.com
Please note that the March 16th deadline is still a hard deadline (in house), so please make sure any mail is in the postal system by March 9th. If we could move the date we would, but that is not an option as these have to be processed due to existing schedules.
If you want to receive either the 3 3/4-inch Footloose OR the 12-inch “Man of Evil” action figures your membership must be active as of March 16th. If your club expiration date is after March 16th you are good to go for this years figure.
Thanks as always and we do apologize for any inconvenience!”
This is obviously a frustrating event for all those involved. Here’s hoping they get the situation ironed out quickly and go back to business as usual.
by generalsjoes | Feb 27, 2012 | G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Collectors Club
There have been folks out there questioning whether the Collectors’ Club might extend the deadline for renewing memberships in order to accommodate folks who are concerned about using the current credit card system for renewals.
Last night, Brian Savage from Fun Publications sent out the following email:
“This update is going out to all members:
Due to the issue with processing credit cards we have currently suspended your ability to renew and join the club online. The deadline is coming March 16th for you to be eligible to receive the 2012 free club exclusives.
On Monday, we will have a pdf online on the club site for membership renewals and new memberships that you can mail in with a check or money order. We will process your membership as soon as they arrive.
Please note that the March 16th deadline is a hard deadline (in house) so please make sure any mail is in the postal system by March 9th.
If you want to receive the free club exclusive Footloose or Man of Evil, your membership must be active as of March 16th. At the bottom of this email you will find your expiration date. If it is after March 16, 2012, you are good to go for the 2012 figure.
Also, please log into the club club site <https://www.gijoeclub.com/club/> and ensure you have the figure selected you want to receive for this year, either 3 3/4″ or 12″.
Thanks for your support and patience during this difficult time.
Brian”
So the membership deadline remains the same if you want your Footloose, but they will have PDF forms available today so a check or money order can be used.
by generalsjoes | Feb 24, 2012 | G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Collectors Club
In the minds of many fans over recent days “no news” wasn’t good news when it came to questions about the G.I. Joe/Transformers Collectors’ Club and the potential for credit card security issues. Over the past month or so, many fans have come forward who used their credit cards with Fun Publications’ online store, finding that fraudulant charges have appeared on their cards.
Well the online store has been shut down for a few days, and today, Brian Savage from the Club has sent the following announcement:
“This is going out to all members:
Fun Publications wants to take this opportunity to apologize to all of our members.
After many days of analysis, Fun Publications has determined that there is a security issue with our e-commerce systems. We appreciate all of you who have sent in your details. Your help has allowed us to ferret out several different patterns of fraudulent charges that have appeared on some members’ cards (any that have been used over the last year with both the club store and our event registration system).
We have several different internet/networking companies looking into the matter. Unfortunately, as of yet, we have not been able to identify any forcible entry either into our internet service provider’s servers or network. This is like chasing a ghost through the wires, as unfortunately, the perpetrator did not leave a trail, foot prints or finger prints.
For those of you who have been affected, we apologize for all of your time this has wasted and any inconvenience it has caused you. We understand your frustration as this same type of fraud has happened to everyone in our office on our personal credit cards at some point in the past. Our merchant services provider wants us to remind everyone that even though this can be a huge annoyance for you, the customer, your issuing bank will not hold you responsible for any fraudulent charges that might be placed on your card(s).
We know that this issue has been a huge topic of discussion on all of the boards for the past few weeks. However, we are required to investigate to determine and confirm a security issue thoroughly before making any public statements. This is why we put out a general alert statement two weeks ago.
Until the analysis is finished (can take several weeks) we don’t know if the shut down by our former (Jan 31st) e-commerce provider caused the security issue or not. We do know that it has not been limited to those who have purchased before the change to our new provider.
Please, watch your cards closely as this type of security issue appears to be on the increase across the net. No site is 100% safe. You may want to consider having any cards you have used with Fun Publications in the last year replaced.
At this time, we do not know how long our e-commerce site will be offline for both the store and registrations. We will get back to you once we have a solution for this security issue.
Thanks for your support – Brian”
The timing couldn’t be worse for the Club has they approach registration for JoeCon and the potential launch for the Figure Subscription Service. Hopefully the issues can be resolved soon and we can go back to business as usual.
by generalsjoes | Feb 4, 2012 | 30th Anniversary, Comics and Cartoons, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation, G.I. Joe Retaliation Toys, G.I. Joe Toys, G.I. Joe: The Movie, Podcasts, What's on Joe Mind
This episode was a blast. Being able to spend an hour talking to the mastermind behind Tunnel Rat in G.I. Joe: Renegades was truly educational. Hearing how he got his start, and who he’s connected with over the years was an amazing experience, and we were all captivated by how easily he fell into Tunnel Rat’s very distinctive voice throughout the interview.
Of course, along with Matt King, we also spoke with Alexx from Alexx’s Shorts, one of the funniest and best G.I. Joe reviewers on the ‘net…at least he was until he turned down my marriage proposal. Go check out Podbean to listen, or just click on the embedded player below. Enjoy!
Show notes are after the jump.
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