Today is July 30th 2001.

When it rains it pours. It has been a busy week for reports that need to be posted to the Wall and You Got Screwed.

This report is about a California based on-line computer seller called ComputerHQ.com.

If you have purchased any equipment from this company from July of 2000 to June of 2001 your personal data including credit card numbers with expiration dates have been available on-line exposed to anyone who might wish to view them for God only knows how long ... possibly since the July 2000 date.

I would not be making this report except for a letter from a Joe at LJ Systems ... a supposed California corporation (an oddity because the records of California corporations lists no registered LJ Systems Inc. so I am to understand) who is somehow connected to ComputerHQ (that connection is also not clear).

Joe it seems (apparently a key member in the ownership of ComputerHQ) choose to spin and try to lie his way out of having his company responsible for this security breech.

Apparently Joe thinks the public is either to dumb or naive to know the difference between a "hack" and an all out company "screw up".

Apparently Joe also thinks he has enough muscle to scare those reporting this fiasco out of reporting the facts ... with the threat of suing them for falling onto their (ComputerHQ) breech of security.

What ever happened to saying "THANKS FOR SAVING OUR ASS"?

Could it be the days of being responsible for your own mistakes are over? ... Apparently so in this company at least.

Let me ask you a question.
If you received an invoice from a company that at the bottom had a website address and you keyed in that address to your browser and ended up with a page the exact duplicate of your invoice ... with name ... address ... order number ... telephone number ... credit card number including expiration date. Would you consider you had hacked into someone s system?
Or would you KNOW SOMEONE HAD SCREWED UP AND WAS DISPLAYING YOUR PERSONAL DATA FOR THE WORLD TO SEE?

If you put 2 and 2 together and figured if you backed up the invoice numbers or went forward with them you might also have available someone else s data?

I certainly would and I do not consider myself that computer savvy ... so I would imagine the average person could figure out the same thing.
Would you then contact the offending company and let them know of their security breech figuring they would immediately correct it?
I certainly would!

Is that what happened?

Definitely NOT!

It took 2 days for the problem to be corrected.

Now even I could password protect a folder on my website in about 5 mins.

It does not take a mega brain or 60 software analysts to do that ... so why was it not done immediatly?
Apparently Joe thinks his customers are relatively stupid and will buy his spin and lies ... or maybe he just thinks none of them will ever find out what went on.

If you are a customer of ComputerHQ and have had unexplained problems with your credit card you may have the reason why now ... if you have not gotten your letter from ComputerHQ that you were part of their security breech ... it is most likely they did not send one.

In my opinion this is one of the most smarmy bits of business dealing I have seen to date,

It boils down to BUYER BEWARE.

For the full details on this story go to:
PC HELP
Here is where the story began ... be sure to read Joe's letter trying to escape responsibility of what came down the pike. Especially note how he talked to a lawyer friend and then accuses Keith and the reporter from Wired of illegal acts ... when indeed if anything illegal occured it was ComputerHQ at fault.

Is it legal for ComputerHQ to post your credit card online for the world to see?

Somehow I think not!

You can count on my never doing business with this company because no matter how good their prices might be in some way you are likely to be screwed ... Joe has made that abundantly clear.

If you want to see how the customers of ComputerHQ rate their service visit:
Reseller Rating
They today have a rating of 3.3 out of 6.0 ... 6.0 being higher.
You can also place comments there.