June 6, 2009

Each morning, I lose a lot of subscribers. They do not cancel. Their credit cards were rejected. Their subscriptions are changed to inactive.

I contacted a specialist. Is it my bank's computer? He replied:

My wife and I recently found that our own credit cards no longer worked on the web or with local merchants.

We contacted our issuing bank and they told us that two weeks ago, one of the worlds largest credit card processors had their database hacked and more than 50 million credit card numbers were stolen.

To prevent misuse of those hacked credit cards, most banks immediately canceled those cards, and issued new cards with new numbers.

We checked our mail, and sure enough we found our newly issued replacement cards with new card numbers.

My immediate thought was this was going to have a huge impact on subscription web sites that offered recurring billing - because the cancellation of 50 million US issued credit cards would definitely include many cards used on subscription sites.

I don't know if this took place or not. There was a major hack last year, discovered in late January .

I mentioned this card problem to a friend yesterday. He said that his bank had sent him and his wife new cards. The old cards were killed.

If your card gets reissued, and you forget to change the card number (I can't do this -- privacy protection), you may get your account canceled by the banks' software. You will not be able to access my site.

Use this link to change the data: https://www.garynorth.com/members/75.cfm

Or go to Your Account.