Was disneyphotopass.com hacked?????

[CowboyJeff]

Hi everyone. Prior to my Thanksgiving Trip to WDW, I attempted to preorder my Disney Photopass CD for $99.00. Despite several failed attempts, I gave up and called Photopass technical support (407-560-6068) for assistance. There are no live reps to take your call, so you just get dumped into voice mail and are forced to leave a message.

3 weeks after my trip, I received a phone call this morning from Debbie at Photopass technical support. I explained to Debbie that when I tried to pre-order the photopass CD, the page just hung and the shopping cart never loaded, so I was forced to spend another $30 on the photo CD after I arrived home. She said the $99.00 pre-order offers are sent to random guests and it's not available for everyone. I informed her the offer is listed on the disneyphotopass.com website at http://www.disneyphotopass.com/previsitcdplan.aspx. She said that is not their website. She said her website is http://www.disneyphotopass.com not http://www.disneyphotopass.com/previsitcdplan.aspx. Can you see what my next question was going to be??? LOL "Debbie, are you telling me disneyphotopass.com was hacked???" She replied, "No, it was not hacked." Then how did the previsitcdplan.aspx page wind up on the disneyphotopass.com domain???? I asked Debbie who Disney's Chief Information Officer was, so I can alert them about a possible hack. Her response: "We don’t have a Chief Information Officer here." I chuckled and said, "You're telling me Walt Disney World has NO CIO?!?!?!?" She said, "I have no idea who the CIO is." Not knowing who's the CIO is a far cry from not having one. For 10 minutes, Debbie swore up and down that this was not a valid disneyphotopass web page.

Now there are only 2 possible scenarios here:
1) Debbie is woefully uninformed about disneyphotopass offers and how Internet domains work... OR
2) Disneyphotopass.com WAS hacked.

Until I hear back from an executive at WDW to clarify their site was not hacked, I have to take Debbie at her word that http://www.disneyphotopass.com/previsitcdplan.aspx is not part of their website. I have no reason to disbelieve a WDW employee, until another WDW employee corrects them. If that is not part of their website, then it is a rogue webpage and everyone should be leery of providing their credit card information when ordering.

After doing some research, I was able to find 3 possible individuals who may be able to shed some light on the issue (if they are still with Disney):
Jeffrey Mirich SVP and CIO Walt Disney Studios
Doug Parish Sr VP and CTO Walt Disney Group
Joe Solimando CIO Disney Consumer Products

Does anyone have contact information for any of these people so I can contact them? Thank you and have a wonderful Holiday Season.

Cowboy Jeff

 

[jenseib]

I don't beleive photopass is even owned by disney. I think it's another company. I also think Debbie is clueless, which I was told alot of photopass people are.

 

[CowboyJeff]

I don't beleive photopass is even owned by disney. I think it's another company. I also think Debbie is clueless, which I was told alot of photopass people are.

Jenseib, at the bottom of the photopass site it says, "©Disney. All rights reserved." They even use Disney's logo and images of Mickey and Pluto, so I'm not sure either-way.... If you are correct, and photopass is not owned by Disney, then that's VERY troubling!!

 

[OhMari]

Can you see your pictures on the site?

I'm going to leave this on the Trip Report board, since I am interested too.
I can see my pictures, and I am waiting for the CD yet.

But, I won't let this thread become a debate about photopass.

Just post, if you are having trouble getting your pre-paid photo CD from photopass.

 

[lovemred]

1) Debbie is woefully uninformed about disneyphotopass offers and how Internet domains work...

Clueless and adamant; not a good combination.

 

[jenseib]

Jenseib, at the bottom of the photopass site it says, "©Disney. All rights reserved." They even use Disney's logo and images of Mickey and Pluto, so I'm not sure either-way.... If you are correct, and photopass is not owned by Disney, then that's VERY troubling!!

Photopass is contracted through Disney. Lots of things at Disney are not Disnye owned. My mom is a Human resources director for a pizza company and they are contracted through disney to make pizza's with the Disney logo. She gets no disney perks. Just her company is allowed to use the Disney logo on certain products.

Lots of people do preorder the CD and get it. Do you have dialup by chance? The photopass site is really slow, even for highspeed. And I wonder if it just wouldn't load because of dialup. Thats why I didn't head a share group last trip as I still had dial up then. I knew I would never be able to get my stuff loaded and ordered, with as long as it took. I was luckily the first person to load and edit though, and by the time the last person did, I could no longer get pictures to show up, or it took a very long time to.
So perhaps that might've been why it wouldn't load the pre paid one in your cart. Otherwise, I'm not sure.

I have read they are trying to possibley get photopass on the disney cruiselines too. But waiting for the contract with the current photographers to end.

 

[CowboyJeff]

Can you see your pictures on the site?

I'm going to leave this on the Trip Report board, since I am interested too.
I can see my pictures, and I am waiting for the CD yet.

But, I won't let this thread become a debate about photopass.

Just post, if you are having trouble getting your pre-paid photo CD from photopass.

Hi OhMari. I may not have made myself clear about my post, thus confusing some people. My post is not about a "technical issue" regarding missing photos or not being able to see photos. It's about the inability to pre-order a photopass CD (which cost me an additional $30) and Disney's claim that the pre-order webpage is not part of photopass.com.

OhMari, visit http://www.disneyphotopass.com/previsitcdplan.aspx and try and figure out how it's not part of disneyphotopass.com.

There should be no debate about photopass. Photopass is a great product and I have 4 photopass CDs to prove it from my last 4 Disney trips. I would like clarification from Walt Disney World about the authenticity of the order page (http://www.disneyphotopass.com/previsitcdplan.aspx) and Photopass' claim that it's not theirs. If this is a fake page on the photopass.com domain, then we are all in danger when we give our credit cards on the site. Payment for photopass CDs should only be made at the parks if this is true. I know you can buy the photopass CDs at the Hollywood Studios photopass shop by the main entrance of the park. They will even burn the CD for you and hand it to you before you leave.

If there is a Disney employee on this site, can you please check into this for all of us? Thanks so much.

 

[CowboyJeff]

Photopass is contracted through Disney. Lots of things at Disney are not Disnye owned. My mom is a Human resources director for a pizza company and they are contracted through disney to make pizza's with the Disney logo. She gets no disney perks. Just her company is allowed to use the Disney logo on certain products.

Lots of people do preorder the CD and get it. Do you have dialup by chance? The photopass site is really slow, even for highspeed. And I wonder if it just wouldn't load because of dialup. Thats why I didn't head a share group last trip as I still had dial up then. I knew I would never be able to get my stuff loaded and ordered, with as long as it took. I was luckily the first person to load and edit though, and by the time the last person did, I could no longer get pictures to show up, or it took a very long time to.
So perhaps that might've been why it wouldn't load the pre paid one in your cart. Otherwise, I'm not sure.

I have read they are trying to possibley get photopass on the disney cruiselines too. But waiting for the contract with the current photographers to end.

jenseib, the issue was definitely not on my end. I tried numerous PCs (home and work), different high speed internet service providers (home, work, hotels), all cookies and cached paged cleared (I work in the Information Technology field. LOL), but no dice. I saw other people were having similar issues pre-ordering the CD, but photopass claiming http://www.disneyphotopass.com/previsitcdplan.aspx was not theirs was bizarre!!!

 

[mouseketeer70]

The site address you had in your OP worked for me. I preordered the CD, got the e-mail with the code immediately, then ordered my CD. I did all of this once we got back from our Thanksgiving trip. I have used Photopass numerous times and I will say that for me the site is always very slow. We have high speed internet access and the page still took awhile to load. I just left the computer for a few minutes and when I came back the ordering page was up. Again, I was able to order it with no problem. Just took awhile for page to load.

 

[scottny]

wish I knew about the special for the cd and photo book before I went I would have bought it.

I always thought it was Disney but not surprised if it is an outside company.

Oh well I guess I will pay full price for it all. Still worth it but the savings is nice.

 

[aribelle]

just an FYI.....I used that previsit link last November to order the $99 CD....and didn't use the code until May 2008....but it worked fine. THe $99 charge was on my December 2007 credit card bill as Disney.

I did the $99 pre order from that same link in September 2008....for our trip that we just got back two weeks ago. Haven't ordered my CD yet, still editing, but the code came from DisneyPhotopass.com and is identical in wording to the one from last year.


It sounds to me like Debbie is clueless about the previsit link....it's been around for SEVERAL years now. You can try doing a search of DIS and you'll find it listed in many many many threads from the last couple of years....all of them the exact same URL.


As for it not working properly for you......well, all I can say to that is lots of Disney websites don't work properly at times.....the reservations one is my personal enemy, lol. Try it again and it will probably work well for you. By the way, even though it's called a "previsit" code....the fact is that nowhere does it ask you for your travel dates, and many people have used it AFTER they return. You simply have to sign up and pay BEFORE you order your CD, which is pretty obvious since you need the code from the purchase, but many have done that, never have I seen a post that it failed.

So....go now to the previsit URL.....make your purchase....and use your code to buy your CD.

If for some reason that URL still hangs for you.....try using the computer at work or a friend's house, because in that case it sounds like it's an issue solely between your system and that website. It's actually NOT unusual for some systems to have issues with certain websites......I could have my DH give you the techie details as they're kinda brain-scramblers to me....but the idiot version is that something, usually your antivirus software or other filtering/firewalling program doesn't like something at the other website.

And if you're still worried that it's some kind of scam (that somehow thousands of DISers have avoided being taken....of course, I do understand how do you know you can trust ME).......remember that your credit card company will help you if you've been scammed. By law, you have 60 days after a charge appears on your bill (which technically means you probably have more than 60 days unless your bill cut off is tomorrow, lol) to dispute a transaction. If you're scammed and don't get your Photopass CD because that previsit website isn't really a part of Disney or whatever......then your credit card company will be told this by Disney, or DIsney will cough up your CD....otherwise the credit card company will reverse the charge. Call your credit card company to verify this if you've never done a dispute before. ONE CAVEAT: If you're not in the USA, I have no clue if these laws are the same in your country though, sorry, so call first and find out. But in the USA, it's part of the nation-wide consumer credit laws. The only way that you won't be credited back is if the seller can prove to your credit card company that you received your purchase......in which case it's not a scam and you wouldn't have made the dispute in this case anyway. So, it's a win-win for you.

I hope that helps relieve some of your worries......everything above should be able to be independently verified by you so that you don't have to take the word of strangers here on DIS.

 

[aribelle]

wish I knew about the special for the cd and photo book before I went I would have bought it.

I always thought it was Disney but not surprised if it is an outside company.

Oh well I guess I will pay full price for it all. Still worth it but the savings is nice.

You can still use the discounted link.....you simply need the code before you complete your CD/Photobook purchase.

So go get your savings!