Some customers who pre-ordered Anycubic’s Kobra 2 Max directly from the OEM were in for double disappointment last week when a delay notification revealed around 200 private email addresses to third parties in a CC data leak.
All3DP received a tip from a customer whose email address was included in a mass email from Anycubic to 100 recipients in CC, revealing personal information in the form of identifiable email addresses. The message contained many private email addresses containing customers’ names and many others with business domains – from small businesses to recognizable brands.
Anycubic later confirmed to All3DP that approximately 200 customers who had pre-ordered the Anycubic Kobra 2 Max and not agreed to the OEM’s privacy policy were affected by the blunder.
“Anycubic places paramount importance on safeguarding user privacy … However, sending emails using [our] platform requires the user to agree to a privacy policy, which not all Anycubic Kobra 2 Max purchasers have agreed to in this case, and therefore they needed to be sent manually. Regrettably, due to a manual oversight, the emails (about 200 recipients) were sent collectively rather than individually”, an Anycubic representative explained.
“The recent incident was an isolated manual error for which we extend our deepest apologies.”
The mass email was sent to notify customers who had pre-purchased Anycubic’s Kobra 2 Max of a shipping delay and provide a modest coupon. A follow-up email clarified that the delay only impacted US customers, although All3DP’s source claims they are not a US resident.
Replies in the mass email chain aired frustration over the delay and data leak.
“Non-pre ordered customers are able to pay right now and get their printers in 3-5 business days, while we basically have to wait until November to ‘maybe’ get our printer. That $10 coupon feels like a spit on the face”, one customer said.
“A late delivery is one thing, but having a pre order be late kind of defeats the purpose of the pre order”, another customer added. “But now to see the same product, available through another retailer, for delivery two or more weeks ahead of my estimated delivery is just mind boggling. Follow that up with a security/confidentiality breach? And the icing on the cake is that I have to spend more money to benefit from your apology gift.”
“At this point I’m just hoping that it shows up sometime before the end of the year”, said another. “I appreciate the apology, but as was said by others, it’s kind of a slap in the face to offer 2% of our original order as a discount to try to get us to buy more from you. Between this mess up and the security issues, I am very hesitant to continue business with this company.”
Anycubic’s Kobra 2 series, including the Kobra 2 Max, was announced and made available for pre-order early last month.
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License: The text of "Anycubic CC Data Leak Reveals Hundreds of Private Email Addresses" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.