Users were recently horrified to find that GameStop's website was malfunctioning and leaking dozens of customer details.
As reported by VGC, customers voiced their shock across social media, recounting how the website would display the names, numbers and addresses of other users, seemingly randomly. On a Reddit post (which has since been removed), one user explained, "Every time I refresh the website, I can see someone else’s name, phone number, address, order history… it’s like a cycle of 4 or 5 people... This is very worrisome, can’t even change password because of this glitch."
Another Reddit user reported their friend was able to see more than that. "My friend was able to view a full credit card number by clicking on a card, but the site reloaded quickly after that," they wrote. The GameStop website seemingly cycled users through different accounts in what appears to be a malfunction, though, at the time of writing, GameStop has not issued a public response to the matter.
The Rise and Fall of GameStop
This is not the first breach of privacy GameStop customers have faced in recent months. A lawsuit against the video game retailer was filed back in September, alleging GameStop "secretly wiretaps the chat feature on its website and then shares the transcripts with a third party that harvests the data for marketing purposes." This would place the company in violation of California's Invasion of Privacy Act by collecting conversations of website visitors and creating transcripts from them without obtaining any prior consent.
Moreover, the lawsuit alleged GameStop "neither informs visitors nor obtains their prior express consent to these intrusions." It went on to add, "Given the nature of Defendant's business, website visitors typically share highly personal and sensitive data with Defendant when using the website chat feature," the suit continued. "Consumers would be shocked and appalled to know that Defendant secretly creates transcripts of those conversations and shares them with a third party."
Prior to all of this, the company enjoyed massive support from customers. The brick-and-mortar chain suffered greatly during the height of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, forced to shutter 450 stores, as announced in a GameStop investors call back in 2020. Later on, in 2021, the company's stock prices, which had previously fallen, shot up by nearly 2000 percent as small-time investors on Reddit used the company to attack Wall Street.
Source: VGC