Hackers

Hackers! Don't you hate them? They are everywhere these days, from the stores you shop at to sites online. I am sure you have all heard by now about the Target breach where millions of credit card numbers and personal info was stolen. This is not the first time that this kind of thing has happened and it will certainly not be the last however in my opinion, it is what those companies do to make things right for their customer that really matters.

It's no secret that I love Target. Hello? I am from the Midwest after all, where Super Targets are on every block. I will always be a loyal shopper for life. This incident that has affected millions of people including me, is very serious and we all need to be monitoring our credit in the months/years to come to protect ourselves. And in case you haven't heard, Target is offering a year of free credit monitoring if you were one of those who were were effected by this incident. Now it doesn't make the whole breach thing ok in my opinion however what I do appreciate is that they are not pretending that this didn't happen. In fact they are addressing the issue head on, taking responsibility and informing their customers of their options. In my book that still makes Target a stand up company and I will continue to shop there. Will also I take advantage of the free credit monitoring? You bet!

But what I can't tolerate is when this type of thing occurs and the company does nothing about it. Case in point, my Pinterest account was recently hacked. Apparently someone from Indonesia logged into my account and tried to pin spam on my account. So Pinterest decided to put my account in "safe mode" without telling me. So when I tried to pin something it wouldn't let me. Their customer service department told me that to fix the problem, all I had to do was reset my password via an e-mail link associated with my account. The only problem is that since we have moved, my e-mail associated with that account is not open anymore. I tried to change the e-mail account myself but it won't let me because my account is in "Safe Mode." So I asked Pinterest to change my e-mail address for me. And their response was since my account is not linked to my Facebook, they could not verify who I was and therefore the only solution was to start over with a new account.

START OVER! You have got to be kidding me! So now all my pins are lost! Awesome. The whole reason I didn't link Pinterest and Facebook was because I chose to purposefully keep the two separate, for my own security reasons. But after a short exchange of questions, Pinterest stopped answering my questions and closed my customer service request. No response, they just closed it. As in they are considering the case has been resolved. Only it is not resolved. All of my nursery decor ideas are gone. All of my recipes to try are gone. All of my gift ideas are gone. All of my dream home inspiration ideas are gone. I will tell you this is enough to make an 8 month pregnant woman really mad! As in really @!$#@$ mad!

But it is not the fact that it was hacked or even the fact that Pinterest put my account in "Safe Mode" that makes me angry. It is how poorly their customer service department handled my request. How can you just close a case and ignore the customer without any attempt to make things right? In fact their only solution basically says that the customer doesn't matter. Even if they couldn't do anything about it, an apology and a heartfelt explanation goes a long way. All I got was a canned response to say,"we are sorry to hear about this issue."

Now imagine what kind of uproar there would have been if Target had responded in the same way? And I fully understand that these are two very different situations with very different outcomes. But a customer is a customer whether it is one or millions. Pinterest can learn a thing or two about customer service from Target. Ignoring and shutting down your customer requests is not winning you any points in my book. Refusing to work with the users of your site is not the way to grow your company.

In fact I would almost rather have my credit and identity stolen then be treated this way (insert sarcasm here).