Big W’s online store has been shut down due to a privacy scare. The retailer just announced that due to “technical issues”, some users’ names, phone numbers and addresses were accidentally leaked to other customers during the online ordering process. As a result, the website has been pulled offline during one of the busiest times of the year. Whoops.
“Between 1.50pm and 3pm on Thursday a small number of our customers using the website for purchases had the first stage of the checkout process pre-populated with the personal information of another customer,” Big W explained in a statement.
“This inadvertent disclosure related to a customer’s name, phone and address. Based on BIG W ’s thorough investigation of the issue we can inform you that no passwords, login details, bank account or credit card details were compromised during this time.”
Here’s the full statement from Big W’s website:
Dear Customer,
At BIG W we take the security of our customers’ information seriously. While we have security procedures in place to protect your information we are writing to inform you of a technical issue which occurred on our bigw.com.au website on Thursday, 10 November 2016.
BIG W is working hard to resolve the issue which meant that between 1.50pm and 3pm on Thursday a small number of our customers using the website for purchases had the first stage of the checkout process pre-populated with the personal information of another customer. This inadvertent disclosure related to a customer’s name, phone and address.
Based on BIG W ’s thorough investigation of the issue we can inform you that no passwords, login details, bank account or credit card details were compromised during this time.
What does this mean for you?
We confirm that your financial information is not at risk and there is no need to take any action regarding your credit or other payment cards. There is also no need to change any of your BIG W website account details or passwords.
What is BIG W doing to resolve the issue?
Once BIG W became aware of this issue, we took the following actions:
1. The BIG W website was taken down immediately at 3pm on Thursday 10
November 2016;2. We commenced an investigation and are in the process of personally contacting every customer that may have been affected;
3. We reported the incident to the Privacy Commissioner at the Oce of
Australian Information Commissioner; and4. Our website technicians are working to rectify the issue and restore the BIG W site safely and securely, which we are looking to do in stages over coming days.
We appreciate your patience in this regard and want to assure you that as a valued customer of BIG W we are doing everything possible to ensure this does not happen again. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.
If you would like to provide any feedback on this matter please contact us directly on [email protected] or phone our customer care centre on 1300 244 999 (Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm, Saturday & Sunday 9am to 5pm)
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