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August 5, 2009
The Tour de France is over, and with it, the
newsletter's vacation has also come to an end. For you new
readers, here's the customary boilerplate: Arizona Road
Cyclist News is sent out free of charge every second
Wednesday by E-mail. Several days later, the newsletter is
posted to the Back Issues page of the Website
www.azroadcyclist.com.
Arizona Road Cyclist News is copyrighted. You may
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In this issue:
Update on the Bike Nashbar Credit Card Hack
Jim Stenholm Memorial Ride October 24
Guest Article by Sue Fassett about PMBC Saturday Ride
Upcoming Tourist Rides in Arizona
Upcoming Road Races in Arizona
Update on the Bike Nashbar Credit Card Hack
As we reported in a bulletin
last week, Bike Nashbar's Web server was hacked in
December of last year, and the credit and debit card numbers
of its customers were stolen.
Bike Nashbar is an online and mail-order store run by
Performance Bicycle.
Performance Bicycle, like many other companies, contracted
Nashbar's Web servers to an independent provider. Performance said that it first began receiving
complaints from some of its Nashbar customers that their credit card
numbers had been stolen in February of this year. The
company further said that its third-party Webhost provider
assured it that there had
been no security breach. However, the calls from customers
continued to come in.
In the meantime, Performance began
moving its Nashbar site to a new Internet platform, a move
that it says was unrelated to suspicions that its servers
had been hacked. To address its customers' concerns,
Performance hired an independent security consultant to examine
the Nashbar site for security flaws. Performance said that the security
company reported back on May 18 that its Nashbar site had
indeed been hacked. Performance says that it then reported "this incident to Visa,
MasterCard, American Express, Discover and the federal law
enforcement authorities...." However, the company did
not at that time notify its 150,000 Nashbar customers
that their financial and personal information was in the
hands of bad people.
Instead, it did what any company would do that is more concerned
about its liability than about its customers' welfare.
It hired a firm of lawyers.
Although Performance claims that it began calling some of
its Nashbar customers in June (no one that I have talked to
acknowledges receiving a
call), it did not publically come clean about the problem
until two Portland, Oregon publications broke the story in
mid-July. By that time, untold numbers of fraudulent
transactions had been made using the stolen credit and debit
card numbers of Performance's Nashbar customers including
three credit cards belonging to your newsletter editor.
The
letter that I finally received from Nashbar/Performance informing me that
my financial information had been stolen is dated July 24, 2009,
more than eight months after the break-in occurred, six
months after Performance began to suspect that its
customers' credit information had been stolen, and more than
two months after Performance knew this for certain. Several readers have E-mailed
me to tell me that they have still received no notification
and had no idea how fraudsters had obtained their credit and card numbers
until they read the bulletin I sent out last week.
Needless to say, anyone who has ever purchased anything from
Bike Nashbar should review all credit card and bank
statements for fraudulent charges. Additionally, customers
should contact the provider of any credit or debit card that
was ever used for a Nashbar purchase and request a new card
with a new number. All Nashbar customers should also log
onto www.nashbar.com
and change their account passwords, as these were also
stolen. You should assume that any information that you have
ever supplied to Nasbar is now in the hands of evil people including your
postal address, E-mail address, name, and telephone number.
As to the future, Performance Bicycle claims that both its
Performance and Bike Nashbar sites are on new platforms,
which are now secure.
Even if that means that personal information will not be stolen
again, it does not necessarily mean that
your credit or debit card numbers are safe with Performance
and Nashbar. The companies themselves misuse them. For example, if
you buy a $25 loyalty card from Performance, Performance will automatically
bill the last credit card that it has on file for you each
year to renew the card unless you call up to opt out.
Bike Nashbar often offers a 10% discount to customers who have a
coupon code. However, the company is known to bill its customers' credit cards
to recoup the discount without authorization. That has
happened to me on two occasions. In one case, my card was billed to recoup the
discount after the order had shipped. In another case,
Bike Nashbar acknowledged the discounted price and
pre-authorized it with my credit card company. However, when it was
time to ship the item, Bank Nasbar attempted to bill my
credit card at the higher, non-discounted price.
Fortunately, I was able to block the overcharge,
whereupon Nashbar refused to ship the item at the
agreed-upon price. When I called up,
the customer service representative admitted that "the
computer" was attempting to overcharge me but said she had no control over
its actions. My advice,
don't ever give Performance or Nashbar your credit or debit card number
or your checking account number.
Nashbar does sometimes have extremely good deals.
The question is how to protect yourself from Nashbar's
overbilling, unauthorized charges, and security risks or for
that matter how to protect yourself from abuse by any
company that stores its customers credit card numbers for
future use. For the limited number of companies that accept
it, one method is to use
PayPal, which is free to the buyer. Another method is to
use temporary, virtual credit card numbers.
Bank of America offers a service to its credit card
customers called SafeShop, which you can learn about by
clicking
here. Basically, the service allows customers to create
a one-time temporary credit card number with specified dollar and
time limits for one-time purchases. For example, if you
place a $45.23 order with Amazon.com, you can create a
temporary credit card number with that spending limit and an
expiration date two months in the future. Once Amazon bills
the credit card number, that number cannot be used again by
any other company, and it cannot be used again by Amazon
unless you extend the credit limit and/or expiration date.
For recurring payments
to Internet service providers, cellular providers and the
like, the user can create a credit card number with a
monthly spending limit. The customer can delete any of these
temporary credit card numbers at any time. It was a SafeShop
number that prevented Nashbar from overbilling me the second
time the company tried to abuse my credit card.
Jim
Stenholm Memorial Ride October 24
Details haven't been worked out yet, but
here's an advance heads-up about a ride that will take place
on October 24, the anniversary of the death of Phoenix
cyclist and police officer Jim Stenholm. Once details are
worked out, I will send out more information in Arizona
Road Cyclist News. The following information has
been provided by Tim Risley of the Phoenix Consumer Cycle Club.
Jim Stenholm was an avid cyclist, a great husband and dad, and a
Phoenix police officer who died unexpectedly on October 24,
2008. Jim loved nothing more than a great day on his bike, an
adventure with his friends, and kicking back with his favorite
people.
The 100 honors Jim and the everyday heroes who do it all – at home, at
work and in the community – just the way Jim would have wanted
it, with miles and miles of time in the saddle. Whether you are
up for the full 100K (62 road miles, a nod to Jim’s badge number
6206) circuit, a shorter haul, or just want to kick back and
have some fun, mark your calendars for
Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009.
Get your road bikes ready!! More on The 100 coming soon ...
Questions? Email Tim Risley at
timothy.risley@homevestors.com
Guest Article by Sue Fassett about PMBC Saturday Ride
Every Saturday morning of the year, a river of road cyclists
flows out of Kiwanis Park in Tempe for a romp around the
southeast valley. The group's casual name is Saturday
Cycling, now under the banner of Phoenix Metro Bicycle Club
(PMBC), but the ride has been gathering each week for 20 years
or so. In the early 90s the group was hosted by a small
local club, the Arizona Bicycle Bunch (ABB). That
association stalled out, with Saturday Cycling then being picked
up by the Phoenix division of GABA. When GABA evolved into
PMBC in the 1998, Saturday Cycling came along for the ride.
The weekly adventure draws 80 to 100 cyclists, from all
backgrounds and ability levels. Route options usually
range from 25 miles to 40 miles, with an optional breakfast
stop towards the end of the adventure.
There's always room for a few more. Come ride with us.
Sue Fassett
www.pmbcaz.org
Upcoming Tourist Rides in Arizona
The Arizona Bicycle Club's annual Grand
Canyon Overnight takes place on the weekend of August 21 to
23. The cost is $30 for ABC and GABA members and $40 for
others until August 10 and an addition $5 afterwards.
Cyclists will camp out at Mathers Campground and ride the
49-mile roundtrip to Desert View on Saturday and the short
19-mile roundtrip to Hermit's rest on Sunday. The trip cost
includes insurance, sag support, and a Saturday-night chili
dinner. For more information, click
here.
The Willcox Chamber of Commerce
presents the Magic
Circle Ride on September 5 in Willcox, Arizona. Riders can
chose from two distances: 33 miles or 66 miles. Both rides
are out and back. The cost of the ride is $25, of which $10
is a contribution to the Willcox Chamber of Commerce &
Agriculture. For more information including a map of the
ride, click
here.
GABA Tucson will present its annual Blue Loop Tour on the
weekend of September 5 through 7. This is a great rural
route with sections where hours can go by without a car
passing. The ride starts on Saturday September 3 in Clifton.
The first day's ride is only 62 miles, but it includes 4800
feet of elevation gain. Prepaid riders will be fed at the
end of the ride. The second day is 58 miles with 5346 feet
of climbing. Breakfast will be served buffet style five
miles into the ride. The final day is Alpine to Clifton. The
Web site says that there are 6800 feet of elevation gain,
but I wonder if that isn't a misprint. After a rolling climb
to Mogollon Rim, there is a screaming downhill that goes on
for mile after mile. Don't forget to pull of the road in
Morenci at the overlook of the open pit copper mine. (Those
who want to do a hard country music preparation for Morenci
with Clifton "in the valley below" may want to search for a
copy of the George Jones song "Open Pit Mine.") The cost of
the ride is $105 with an unspecified discount for GABA,
PMBC, and ABC members. (PMBC and ABC members must mail in an
application to receive the discount; GABA members can
receive the discount online.) For more information on the
ride (but not on the song), click
here.
Upcoming Road Races in Arizona
The August road racing calendar is sparse in Arizona, but
there are a number of events planned for this month.
The last two races in the Tortilla Tuesdays series will be
held on the evenings of August 11 and August 18. Tortilla
Tuesday is an out-and-back race along the Apache Trail from
Apache Junction to the end of the pavement past Tortilla
Flats. The races start at 5:15 p.m. For more information,
click
here.
The second in the Picacho Peak Time Trial Series takes place
on August 16 with the third race to follow on September 6.
The course is on the freeway frontage road heading south
from Picacho. Riders have a choice of riding either 20 or 40
kilometers, and riders compete in five-year age increments.
Registration is a reasonable $15 for most riders and only $2
for juniors. Because this is the same course that will be used
for the Arizona State Individual Time Trial Championships on
September 13, this is a
good race to hone your time trial technique for the big
event. For more information, click
here.
The Skull Valley Road Race takes place on August 23, and as
the name implies, the race starts in Skull Valley south of
Prescott. The course is out and back with rolling hills.
Junior race 25 miles, and other categories race 55 miles.
The race entry fee is $15 for juniors, $30 for all other USA
Cycling categories, and $25 for the citizens' "fun ride."
For details, click
here.
The month ends with the Arizona Team Time Trial Championship
races on August 30. This race also uses the freeway frontage
road course that begins at Picacho. Teams consist of four
riders, and there will also be a tandem category. For teams,
the finishing time is take when the third rider crosses the
line. The teams may consist of four men, four women, or two
men and two women. There are also some interesting age
categories, for example, a women's category with no team
member under 50 and a men's category with no member under
60. There are also open categories with no age limits. Entry
fees are $80 per adult team, $40 per junior team, $40 per
tandem with adult riders, and $20 per tandem with junior
riders.
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