Mismatched Credit Card Data and Shipping Info Plagues iPhone 4 Orders

  • Share
  • Read Later

After reports yesterday involving glitches in the iPhone 4 preordering systems through both Apple and AT&T—servers crashing, ordering systems overloaded, stores taking handwritten orders, and more—it appears that simply not being able to preorder an iPhone 4 wasn’t the only problem.

Gizmodo is reporting that several would-be customers have run into much more serious issues, including finding unknown credit card numbers tied to their AT&T accounts, unrelated shipping addresses cropping up during the ordering process, and at least one customer who reports getting an e-mail confirming the purchase of an iPhone he didn’t even order.

“I just received an order confirmation yesterday for an iPhone 4 and I did not even order one! …I thought it was fake at first but after checking the order status on ATT’s website I knew it was a real order. Now I just wonder if it will come to my house.”

According to a previous article:

“This is how it happens: A customer tries to log into their AT&T account to order a new iPhone 4 upgrade. Despite entering their username and password, the AT&T system would take them to another user account. This gives access to all kinds of private information about the mistaken customer: Addresses, phone calls, and bills, along with the rest of private information.”

AT&T has apparently been unable to replicate the issue but says that “the information displayed did not include call detail records, social security numbers, or credit card information.”

These apparent glitches in AT&T’s ordering system come less than two weeks after a hacking group was able to expose iPad 3G owners’ e-mail addresses on AT&T’s site using a relatively simple PHP script to harvest the personal data. Despite the iPhone preordering issues, it’s being reported that Apple has completely sold out of launch-day units.

UPDATE: Reports are now trickling out that AT&T has sent the following memo out to its employees:

“Pre-orders for iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS 8GB are Temporarily Suspended

Effective close of business on June 15, 2010, the ability to place pre-orders (new activations, upgrades and exchanges) has been temporarily suspended.  There is a special team that will be manually working all pre-orders from June 15th that were held in a pending status.  Under no circumstances should new pre-orders be attempted in the system.”

More on Techland:

Security Breach Exposed iPad 3G Owners’ E-mail Addresses

PSA: You Can Pre-order the iPhone 4 at Best Buy

In Light of iPhone 4, AT&T Offers Credit to Recent 3GS Buyers