I’m writing this to let everyone know what happened to our payment system on the first mother-fucking day of our second biggest mother-fucking sale of the year (I’m not upset or anything, obviously), and so that I’ll have a post to point to if it ever happens again. 

I never thought this could happen to me (thought I’d start out like a Penthouse Letter to make it feel sexier than it really is), mostly because I didn’t know this shit happened to anyone.

The equivalent is if you owned a tiny little store, a cute little bodega that you’re very proud of, and you installed a self-checkout for people who are in a huge hurry. One day, while you’re stocking the shelves, or maybe eating a nice sandwich, someone comes in and rings up a pack of gum at the self checkout, but instead of whipping out a credit card, they start typing in a hundred credit card numbers a minute, trying to find one that works.

You toss your sandwich aside, yell, “Hey, you there! What the fuck are you doing?!”, but by the time you get to them, they’ve hauled ass out the door. They didn’t take anything, there’s very little chance they found a credit card, expiration date, CVV that all worked together. So, you’re just pissed that you probably have to pay a transaction fee for every attempt they made, but other than that, everything’s fine… or so you think.

Because the next day, a man in a suit shows up, puts a chain on your door and turns off your electricity. He yells, “There has been frauding here!” You’re shocked, because you always make sure you treat your customers well, even to your own detriment if it means they keep coming back. Because you love your little bodega and want everyone to come enjoy it, and would never in a million years take advantage of anyone. Then you remember that douche bag you chased out of the store the day before. Fuck. You explain all this to the man, and he scowls and yells, “Fine, but until you can prove to me it won’t happen again, you can’t have money.”

With tears in your eyes, you ask, “I’ve done everything I could think of, everything Google and message boards have suggested, can you give me any advice?”

The man says, “No! I will go away now to do mysterious things that will take a nonspecific amount of time. And when I’m done with that, you may be able to have your store back.”

He leaves and you sit inside as people knock on the door, wanting in. All you can do is panic and wait. Will you ever open again? Are all your years of hard work down the drain? Finally, eight or nine hours later, you get an impersonal email from the man’s assistant’s assistant telling you to take the chains off the door. 

You’re so happy! You can see your customers again! But they’ve heard there were credit card shenanigans afoot. Are you honest? Are they safe? As much as you assure them, you’re always afraid that in the back of their mind, they aren’t sure about you anymore.

So, to answer that–nobody’s credit card information could possibly be exposed from my site. It’s not processed here and not stored here. Credit card testing is just a douchebag running in off the street and typing random numbers into a keypad and doesn’t affect your safety or security at all–just me. Sigh.