As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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I'm so sorry to hear about that. No one needs extra worries and chores because of someone else's dishonesty!
A while back someone used my credit card to buy plane tickets from a site that was in a language I could not even identify, let alone speak. I found it during a routine card check that I do from time to time.
Pretty gutsy, I think, since you hve your butt sitting in a seat and you are a sitting duck for being caught, but whatever. The company took care of it and it did not cost me a dime.
Hope things go well for you! Please keep us posted!
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Hi KT. That stinks, and I know because the exact same thing happened to us!!! We rented a truck to move and about three weeks later, a guy from a computer manufacturing office called to ask us if we'd placed an order for a computer. We were like - "um... no...we just bought a house. If you think we can afford anything new right now, you're crazy!" The people at the computer office told us that a few "questionable young men" came in to pick up a computer that had been placed with our credit card, and when the two young men were unable to produce the credit card at the time to pick up the computer, he suspected foul play. We called the credit card company immediately to tell them our card had been compromised. They asked us all of the places where we had given a sales person our credit card # other than our usual places, and the truck rental place was the only one out of the ordinary. The only thing that helped us pinpoint the rental company was the description of one of the men - it sounded just like the counter service person at the truck rental company. Since there wasn't any "actual" proof that it was them, we weren't able to press charges. But we wrote a strong letter to the owner of the truck rental company with our complaint, and the company has since gone out of business (with criminal investigation, from what we understand). The credit card company found several other charges that we hadn't made directly after we had rented the truck, and quickly took action. It took about three weeks for us to get all of the money back that the thieves had stolen just due to credit card company red tape, but in the end it worked out well for us. I know it is frustrating, and very difficult to wrap your mind around having your information compromised, but trust me when I say you're not alone. I'm amazed at how similar our story is to yours!
When dealing with the credit card company, I think that it really helped us to have an approximate date for the thievery, so if you can think back and try to figure out when the compromise happened, it might make your dispute a little smoother. They OUGHT to recognize the bad charges simply by seeing that the charges are made at places that you don't normally shop, but... with the current financial crisis that the banks are in, I'd settle in to fact that you'll probably need to jump through some serious red tape hoops!
If you have any problems, and think I can help, feel free to PM me... since we had the same experience, I can give you more info about what we did to prevent fraud and how we got our $$ back.
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Boogie down!!! __________________________________________________ ______ "Life's like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing. Keep pretending." from The Muppet Movie
A friend of mine had someone open up a card in her name with the wrong birthday and the wrong address! Well, hello, how is that HER?????????????!??????? That is someone else anyway. She had to go through all sorts of troubles for it, but I still think that if someone does not even have your info correct, you should be off the hook completely!
I pay 12 dollars a months for an online monitoring service, and I do check.
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Thanks for all the information everyone! I'm so sorry many of you have had the same experiences, but it does show how often this happens.
I have an update. I had actually gotten a call on Friday by a fraud agency saying there were some strange charges on my card (I just got the message this morning - I don't know why it didn't show up earlier) but anyway - they were very helpful and understanding. They basically said I am covered for all of the charges. There were also some other purchases ($400 dollars worth of jewelery) that haven't gone through my bank yet that have been charged to my account. Obviously I have to take care of all that as well. But I'm glad I talked to the insurance agency and at least know about these other charges.
Interestingly - my good friend who I go to school with had the exact same problem on the same day. She had charges from Dell, iTunes etc on Friday for even more money than I was charged for. Seems like we both went somewhere and used our cards and the thieves somehow copied our information since both of our cards are in our wallets. Amazing how smart these people are....now if they could only use their brains for something legal!
But again thanks for all the pixies and stories - I really appreciate them. I'll keep you all updated - I'm hoping that by the end of the week everything will be resolved.
Oh man that is terrible. How much of your information did they get?
Is your house secure?? Are you secure?
Getting access to your cc info is bad enough.
But please make sure they don't have access to you.
Sorry I work in security.
Thanks for your concern Scott - it seems like these guys got our info from a restaurant in Boston - we're a good 40 miles from there. So I'm fairly certain we are safe - because they didn't get our wallet or anything they wouldn't have our address....or at least I don't think it's possible that they could get that info.
No doubt all of us have heared, read or seen on T.V. the thousands of ways for the criminals and thieves to get your cc numbers to charge merchandise to your account, but, have you heard of this one.... There is an electronic gadget that crooks can carry in their pockets that will read your credit card information and transfer it to their receiver, in their pocket, with out you knowing it, just by them walking past you. I don't recall the distance but it is like 6 feet.
This will give you something to think about. Now, how safe is you wallet or purse?
No doubt all of us have heared, read or seen on T.V. the thousands of ways for the criminals and thieves to get your cc numbers to charge merchandise to your account, but, have you heard of this one.... There is an electronic gadget that crooks can carry in their pockets that will read your credit card information and transfer it to their receiver, in their pocket, with out you knowing it, just by them walking past you. I don't recall the distance but it is like 6 feet.
This will give you something to think about. Now, how safe is you wallet or purse?
You know information like this makes you realize there is nothing anyone can do to keep their cards safe. Actually makes me feel a bit better to be perfectly honest. However, in our case it seems like they got our information from a restaurant we went to. Anyway - my banks on it, although I have to admit the woman I spoke with yesterday left little to be desired. She was more interested in talking about my engagement/wedding than figuring out my money situation. I had to repeatedly ask her to stay on topic and although I love talking about the wedding, this wasn't the time I wanted to go into details .
Some one stole my number, not my card two uears ago when I was in Orlando. I am reasonable sure it was the taxi driver becuase I was in a hurry and accidently pulled my business card out. It was the only time I used it. The charges were actually about six months after i left, which my bank said was typical.
My thief only used the card for about $300.00 before I caught it so the bank was not interested in pursuing criminal charges. that was what made me so mad, especially since some of the charges were for prisoner phone cards.
Good luck and hopefully it will be straightened out soon.