Essential, the company founded by Andy Rubin (considered by many as the godfather of Android) and the maker of the Essential Phone (which recently had started shipping), has admitted that it had inadvertently leaked personal customer information with others, apparently as part of an attempt to authenticate a certain number of buyers’ identities before shipping the Essential Phone.
Some customers had taken to the Internet, particularly on Reddit and the XDA Developers Forum, in order to complain that they have been hit with a seemingly phishing scheme designed to to target those who are waiting for their Essential Phone units to get shipped. These users also thought that the scam was created so that their customer information could be exploited for identity theft purposes.
But Rubin has since posted a new entry in Essential’s blog, fully admitting that the phone maker had made a serious mistake. To see the full post, visit this web page. In his apology, the chief executive officer of the company explained that because of the error, personal info from an estimated 70 users were shared with a small group of other users.
Rubin was also quick to point out that the misfigured account has since been deactivated, and Essential has essentially taken some measures to ensure that the mistake will not be committed again in the future. For good measure, the company is offering those affected a whole year’s subscription to the LifeLock identity theft protection service.
It is interesting to note that amidst this news involving leaked personal customer information, there have been recent reports that Essential still has not actually started shipping preordered Essential Phone units, even after it was reported last weekend that shipping have commenced and after the company has started charging customers’ credit cards. There is also talk that orders from Amazon.com have been cancelled, and orders from Sprint have also experienced some delays. Despite this, other customers have reported that they have already begun receiving email messages with regards to shipping confirmation.
Going back to the phishing email, the message has requested for a copy of the customer’s photo ID, as well as the user’s signature and existing billing address. For a full copy, you can check it out as this web page. A number of unsuspecting people have been reported to have already replied to the email. A few have also claimed that they have noticed fraudulent transactions on their credit cards, too.
