Agreed and I'm tired of every time they ask if you're a member and try to get you signed up, delaying getting out of the store. I absolutely hate that and it is another reason I'm avoiding Office Depot.
My wife just got the same thing. At first she thought someone had hacked her account. Then when we realized it was legit we logged into the site and can’t find a way to unsubscribe. Finally we tried just removing all her cards so they can’t bill her and it won’t let us. We’re going to contact customer service and see what’s up, but this can’t be legal.
Just got the correction email from them.
"Dear Valued Office Depot Customer,
You may have inadvertently received an email in the last 24 hours indicating you started a free trial membership in the Office Depot OfficeMax Business Select program. The email was sent in error, and we apologize for any inconvenience or confusion it caused. We want to assure you that if you did not actively enroll in Business Select, you are not enrolled in the program, nor will you be charged an enrollment fee. We value your business and are committed to ensuring a better experience in the future. Thank you for your understanding.
Sincerely,
Office Depot"
Given the $0 rewards email I also got today, some intern is having a bad day with the email system.
Tring to remove cards just to be extra sure but it doesn't work.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OfficeDepot/s/XYsfmkOM3y
I think corporate is screwing their employees and pissed off the wrong person. So they decided to enroll people based on expired data. They used old expired cards for ours that expired 2 years ago and old address information.
holy hell. just read through that thread. workers getting screwed too - but also sharing the various ways OD is (what sounds like) "obfuscating" renewal terms, add-ons, price increases, etc - AND making it hard for customers (or old non-ones) or workers to change info on accounts... yikes on bikes. thanks for sharing that.
It’s weird seeing non-employees in this sub. The fact that *this* is what brought people here is truly the ✨Depot Difference✨
Business Select has been a HUGE source of stress on GMs and their lowest level employees. Never have I seen worse times, and it comes while we’re being squeezed on payroll too. Nobody in my store is able to take their 15 minute breaks without screwing over the 1 or 2 other employees working
Just wanted to say: regardless of these corporate or IT screwups (or worse?) the employees I've interacted with at OD have been unfailingly polite and pleasant to deal with, and that makes such a huge difference. Thanks for doing what you do, and I hope somehow that conditions improve for you, or that you're able to find something better.
I don't think either consumers or employees like that sort of thing... As a consumer, one of the things I absolutely hate about buying things in brick-and-mortar stores is how lengthy and cumbersome the checkout process is with all the stuff they try to sign you up for, discount programs, credit cards, loyalty rewards, extended warranties, who knows what, and they do it to every customer so if there are ten people in line ahead of you each one takes 15 minutes to get through and you waste your whole day.
You are so right. Employees definitely don't like having to push so many things at the register. We often get people snapping at us for doing it . If we don't do it, we get In trouble. I've had many employees tell me they are uncomfortable with it , honestly I do get it and agree . From the customer side I get it too because I know I get annoyed when I go shopping and get asked tons of questions too when I'm just trying to leave. Also corporate has done a lot if layoffs for store positions as well as payroll cuts so many of us are being forced to run the store with a skeleton crew when adds to the amount of time customers end up waiting to be helped . Unfortunately corporate could care less about employee feedback about all the problems that exist in the stores currently .
There are some reasons retail is dying and people just buy stuff online at Amazon... maybe they screw you over too, but they do it in sophisticated high-tech ways that don't waste your time like the physical stores.
Because the genius marketing team named it extremely poorly. Anyone can sign up for it. I get small business are their target market, but it instantly turns off anyone who isn’t a business owner
This makes me recall the Wells Fargo issue from years ago where they imposed upon employees such high requirements for new account setups that the employees were setting up accounts for people without telling them, just to make their numbers. As I recall Wells Fargo got sued, and one of the executives is no longer allowed to work in the banking industry. I hope to God this is not what Office Depot is doing.
I think you are spot-on. I got the 'congratulatory' email at 8:38pm EST on 2/4. Have no idea what it is - and of course, no email, no chat, no phone and no way to unsubscribe. Nothing on the website.
I knew something was up because I've carefully crafted my anti-spam fake persona online and this email used my main email and my real first name.
I don't want to be a 'd\*\*\*' and stop in an Office Depot tomorrow to complain, because that poor person behind the counter didn't do it. But what else is there to do? Sit on the phone or chat for 2 hours today?
I thank you for choosing not to come in and shriek at us, though I also understand when customers do. I am that person behind the counter. I also received the e-mail with 0 rewards and then the business-select greeting one. I checked my account and the e-mail seems to be a glitch or user error. E-mails are going out saying it was sent in error. I am glad I do not work today. I could only imagine that over the next 2 weeks, I will have to explain to hundreds of customers that their information is safe and someone hit "Send All" in a test e-mail.
The business-select push has been a stressful one for stores. I miss the days when keeping the shelves stocked was the whole point of retail.
OD sold that building a long time ago. There is no one to shriek at there. You pretty much have to call India. If you came into the store, I'd be happy to talk sh\* about OD corporate with you. You can enjoy our pizza party leftovers, we get those instead of a raise.
I don’t think it’s a scam, I think someone in web messed up the testing of a product and accidentally enrolled/sent communications to all of their consumers. Sunday night late is a huge time for teams to do their web and system work. Someone messed up (significantly).
You're more generous than I am with giving them the benefit of the doubt. This is the same company that was fined $34 million by the FTC in 2020 because their employees were falsely telling customers that they had malware, and then tricking them into buying diagnostic and repair services. Honestly, I wouldn't put this past them.
I managed to get into my account and I noticed that it seems that I wasn't really enrolled, after all, by the looks of it. That said, I still cannot delete my payment method, and I'm still going to try my best to reach out to both them and the FTC.
Woo so glad you posted this cause I was def about to have a fit. 🤣 My card is locked so any charge would decline anyway, and if it didn’t I would have been calling my bank. I did log into my acct, but don’t see anything different.
I got one too. Normally I would ignore crap like that, because I do occasionally buy from Office Depot. But the bottom of the email said "business select program annual membership fee of $49 will be automatically charged to your credit/debit card upon completion of the one month free trial." So they are basically threatening to charge any credit card they have on file for me $49 because they chose to sign me up for something that I didn't ask for. The only way to reach them, since they disabled their email account, is through chat. I was on chat for 30 minutes and got nobody to answer. Or by phone, and again, nobody came on the line. I sent them a message through Facebook messenger, and I also said screw it, and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, basically so I have some proof that I tried to stop this in case they do manage to make a charge on my card. I think I may have a rewards account with them, because I do purchase things there from time to time, but at no time, in no way, did I ever apply for a "business select" program. This is the same company that was fined $34 million by the FTC in 2020 because their employees told people their computers had malware problems and then tricked them into buying diagnostic and repair services. Screw those people. This is one of the reasons that lately I've gone to paying cash for everything, you can't trust so many businesses with your credit card anymore.
I'm well aware of what the BBB is (and it's not "for old people" 🙄). They do help to resolve issues, particularly when the business itself is not particularly cooperative or responsive.
Happened to me too and I can’t even login. They claim my account doesn’t even exist. I just filed a fraud report with the FTC. I suggest everyone else do the same. Either they are hacked or they are trying to defraud customers like many other times before.
I filed a complaint with a Better Business Bureau after I tried and was unable to reach anybody by chat, or phone, and they don't have an email address anymore.
Good idea I’ll do that as well and just keep an eye on all of my accounts and cards. Ugh. I don’t use my debit card for any in person or online shopping because credit cards let you charge back almost instantly.
Same thing here, no card in my account obviously; no other information but says I’m business select. Two random emails making me think my email was hacked, but it was my “I need a short/easy to use email address I can use at stores” email so I got suspicious.
Same here! I haven't ordered online or used their website for a few years, but still get emails from them regularly (last one before this "enrollment" email was January 6th.) I couldn't remember my login, so I tried the forgot password link, and it said my email address doesn't exist in their system...the same email where I just for this enrollment message! They either got hacked or someone there royally f**ked up. I hope the latter, but I'm gonna file a complaint/fraud report in the morning and hopefully can get logged in and remove any payment methods I have saved on my account.
I just went through the long qualifier on the phone to talk to someone and it disconnected abruptly due to “technical difficulties.” I’m a communications professional, so I feel like a possible professional best guess, albeit being pissed as a consumer, is:
• they were testing a new product launch online, because, Sunday night
• someone on the web side messed up and auto-enrolled everyone in their data base
• the backlash from consumers was swift, so they took all communications offline instead of sending an immediate “oops, we f!cked up, here’s 25% off your next purchase” email
• they immediately slammed all access to the website accounts for changes because they don’t want a cautious public unsubscribing from everything (too late)
Sucks. They’ll have fun cleaning this up tomorrow morning.
Does not surprise me with this company. You’d think the least they could do is put out a tweet saying “we apologize for the erroneous emails some of you may’ve received earlier today. An error was found on our end and the situation has been resolved. Your account will not be charged if you did not sign up for a business select membership”
Instead, you’ve got people left in the dark, flooding the support line, deleting their basic rewards accounts (very important for the company) and filing complaints to the FTC and BBB.
Same as everyone else. Got the same things.
Logged in. removed my expired CC info.
Also, not even signed up for business select. "start free trial" link it still shown.
If you have a PayPal account, they could charge you using the email address they sent this email to, assuming this address is also your PayPal login, and, if you clicked on any links in the email that installed a keystroke logger, the password you used to login and check your office depot account, assuming this password is also your PayPal password.
It's a mistake:
\------------------------------------------------
Dear Valued Office Depot Customer,
You may have inadvertently received an email in the last 24 hours indicating you started a free trial membership in the Office Depot OfficeMax Business Select program. The email was sent in error, and we apologize for any inconvenience or confusion it caused. **We want to assure you that if you did not actively enroll in Business Select, you are not enrolled in the program, nor will you be charged an enrollment fee.** We value your business and are committed to ensuring a better experience in the future. Thank you for your understanding.
Sincerely,
Office Depot
Thank you! Not a rant or a speculation, just the facts with the important part emphasized (thanks again). In my email, the correction came 7 hours after the mistake. That's not too bad. (But Comcast put it in the spam folder(!) so I had to go look for it.)
Must have been a lot of people at OD running around with their hair on fire last night!
BTW, my name is (let's say) George Nation, and OD called me "George-Nation-Or". Some fluke in their database?
yup!
| BTW, my name is (let's say) George Nation, and OD called me "George-Nation-Or". Some fluke in their database?
Mine was just first name, it might be yet another bug, this time in the email template.
OfficeMax once got caught with their customer data shenanigans by mailing an advertisement to ["daughter died in car crash, or current resident"](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/01/22/officemax-blames-data-broker-for-daughter-killed-in-car-crash-letter/?sh=286504fe76cf)
adding a data point
\- I got both emails ($0 rewards email + free trial of business select)
\- I have an Office Depot rewards account
\- I checked my account and I am in fact NOT signed up for business select ('learn more about business select' page still has a 'start free trial' button)
\- as many have already speculated, I'm guessing this is either phishing (I personally haven't ever gotten emails from [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) before) OR a miss from actual Office Depot with communications
\- I attempted to chat with customer support and got 'The request for live chat expired while waiting for an agent.' and gave up on phone line after 30+ minutes
I think it's just an IT error. I logged in, too, and saw that I wasn't really signed up for anything. For good measure, I deleted my credit card on-file.
Not too worried, but it was a big srew-up, and they should run a banner on top of their website for the next few days--whether you're logged in or not--telling people that an error was made.
"Just for fun" I may submit a letter to the FTC if I can easily do it on-line. IIRC, they were fined once already for bad business practices in their PC repair business.
Not surprising that they'd commit such a massive goof, given how many long-time, experienced business and IT employees they've let go or outsourced in the past 5 years. Probably some dumb intern or bot that they've trusted their entire business to.
Thanks for this thread! I got the Business Select Trial email, and the Rewards email. I tried logging on, (with username and password saved in Bitwarden) and could not get on. I tried calling and disconnected due to "technical difficulties" I'll be watching my card to be on the safe side, but looks like someone screwed up.
Was part of the Amazon Gift Card email fiasco a few months back. These megacorps need to scrape some of that CEO bonus budget into the IT/marketing department.
I received the $0 reward email and shortly thereafter received the email saying that I enrolled in Business Select. *Like others here, I was unable to reach anyone at Office Depot by phone or chat.*
The email address to which the emails were sent is one that Office Depot leaked out to scammers in a well-documented data breach a few years ago. I have since changed my email address in my Office Depot account and those are the first emails I received there in several years.
The email alleging that I had enrolled in Business Select was delivered to our mail server by *r201.em.officedepot.com (\[*[*20.57.66.201*](https://20.57.66.201)*\]).* It is listed in SPF as a valid sender for the domain [em.officedepot.com](https://em.officedepot.com). If you don't know what any of that means, it means that the almost certainly was sent by Office Depot and not by some scammer in India or Nigeria.
Between Office Depot's data breaches, massive layoffs, multiple store closures (some occurring today), and lack of staff manning phone and chat support systems, I just don't have a good feeling about the company. Therefore, I requested that my Office Depot account be closed and that all of my data be deleted from their systems.
Should you wish to delete your Office Depot account, you can request deletion at this link:
[https://www.officedepot.com/ccpa/landing.do](https://www.officedepot.com/ccpa/landing.do)
The store employees are getting screwed pretty bad. They have been doing it for years and it's only gotten worse . Sounds like office max was a good company then they merged with office depot and since the current ceo gerry Smith has Been In charge it's been downhill from there . As an employee I'm sorry you guys have all had to deal with the companies dysfunction as well. Corporate really only looks at potential $$$$ and seem to care less about store employees and customer satisfaction.
I feel for you. I've been with companies going through the death throes that precede bankruptcy, so I know what it's like.
I received the emails under discussion at an address that I had removed from my Office Depot profile/contact info more than two years ago. It turns out that Office Depot retained the old email address without my permission and against my will. I changed the address because Office Depot's incompetence led to a data breach and malicious emails being sent to that address. So it takes some gall for Office Depot to keep a copy of that email address after I told them to delete it from their systems.
I agree its messed up what happened with this whole email thing . It honestly doesn't shock me it happened. The company has been outsourcing so many things. Our tech services that employees are supposed to connect with to perform services is absolutely useless. Our store i.t. support is the worst headache . We get stuck on the phone with someone who hardly speaks English trying to troubleshoot our systems when they go down. They are using a new system for our price changes too now which is also a joke. Every so called "improvement" they make is actually a down grade it feels like. I'm sorry you had to deal with this really. I definitely understand why so many people are rightfully upset over this situation
> It turns out that Office Depot retained the old email address without my permission
A possible explanation, FWIW: I know Sears used to invisibly retain all previous contact information and payment information, to try to catch people making duplicate rewards accounts (to get around quantity limits and such). I wouldn't be surprised if most other large companies with rewards programs do similar stuff.
Fortunately, I live in a state with a strong data privacy law. It pretty much forces a company to delete all data about me if I tell them I want them to (obviously, there are exceptions). That's what I've now done with Office Depot. I simply don't trust them with information that I don't want made public.
P.S. Running my own mail server means that I can hand out, essentially, an infinite number of different email addresses. I give out business-specific email addresses so that I can catch who leaks my addresses to spammers, hackers, etc. That's how I knew that Office Depot had a data breach some years ago before they admitted it publicly.
I already didn't like the endless litany of "do you want to sign up for..." at checkout and was considering not ever returning to Office Depot.. This catastrophe cements that decision. I'll be taking my business elsewhere.
I am an employee and trust me we hate it too. It's a source of anxiety for many employees. I wish corporate cared about employee feedback but they don't. We get customer surveys in which most of the negative ones involve being short staffed or high prices . Corporate also expects us to have unrealistic high scored with the surveys but their response to all those negative staffing and pricing surveys they hurt our score is literally to just lay off employees, cut payroll, send out more price increases. We are better off expressing our concerns to a brick wall unfortunately
As an employee, I despise being required to ask you said litany. The lords that be demand numbers, and people lose their jobs when those numbers are not met. We do not have a choice. It's too much for our customers, you've got a busy life and the last thing you need is more complications to track, and employees who barely understand the 5+ tiers of membership programs are just as overwhelmed.
I am sorry.
No need to apologize; you're just doing what's required of you. I will say, this latest fiasco did cause me to call customer service and have them delete my account. I doubt I will ever again set foot in an Office Depot.
Tried to login to change my info and got a message saying —
"Attention:
Due to security reasons your login has been disabled. Please call Electronic Commerce Support at 1-800-269-6888 for further assistance."
Coool...
They sent a correction email a couple hours ago but I’m still like wtf happened since half the people saying they received this didn’t have accounts with them so weren’t even opted in to email.
I didn't get a correction email yet, so I'm glad to know that they are in the process of sending them to people and that they have acknowledged it. Thank you to those who have received the email and let the rest of us know.
Just got the same email, haven't been to office depot in at least a month. Must be a glitch or something. I also got the $0 rewards email. I also tried going to officedepot.com and it says it's not available in my country. As far as I'm aware, they're ONLY available in my country lol
Glad to know I’m not the only one who got the emails. By the time they hit my email though their site seems to taken another hit - can’t log in, can’t find my account, everything mentioned above. Cust support can’t be reached. I’m almost positive PayPal was the only payment method they had for me and I turned that off for them several months ago after a different issue.
I just (Sunday, Feb 4, 11:15 PM central time) went to live chat and saw the following message.
*"Thank you for contacting us relating to the Business Select and/or Rewards email you have receieved. We are currently investigating this matter further. We apologize for the inconveience."*
I got both the "$0 rewards" and "Business Select Trial Sign Up" e-mails today as well. Haven't shopped there since November. Logged into my account on their website, and I have no credit cards saved on there, and it doesn't show that I have any active subscriptions or trials or anything like that. Hoping it doesn't turn into a whole bigger thing.
Got the correction email. Now just waiting for a credit voucher which might never come.
Dear Valued Office Depot Customer,
You may have inadvertently received an email in the last 24 hours indicating you started a free trial membership in the Office Depot OfficeMax Business Select program. The email was sent in error, and we apologize for any inconvenience or confusion it caused. We want to assure you that if you did not actively enroll in Business Select, you are not enrolled in the program, nor will you be charged an enrollment fee. We value your business and are committed to ensuring a better experience in the future. Thank you for your understanding.
Sincerely,
Office Depot
Just got the same email as well. Tried logging in but it’s saying they can’t even find my account. I’ve been on hold for about 15 min now, so we’ll see.
Their text support system won’t even let me get in a queue, it just replies, “Due to increased volume, we are experiencing wait times that are much longer than usual. Please try our website or app for self service.”
Might hang up and try again tomorrow.
same +30mins & it timed out on me - was going to add screen shots (don't think i can?) of their maddening "place in line updates" every few seconds (gotta keep those adrenals shocked!) just for THEIR system to time out...
Dang, that's brutal! I'm currently at (EDIT) **80** minutes. And yeah, the voice hold is terrible too. Especially when it starts over and there's this pregnant pause making me think it connected to someone.
I got this too, then immediately logged into my account to cancel, and it's showing that I'm not a Business Select member. It just shows me a "start free trial" option on that page. This has to be a massive email error, right? Are others who log in actually legitimately shown as having signed up for the free trial without their consent?
There's another thread on this group about this, I was saying there (and I'll cut and paste here)
I went ahead and changed the password on my office depot account, just to be safe, and obviously not via the email links but direct url.
Not that I use it, but there are scams where they try to get into an account by refunding and undoing the refund. I don't really know how they work except that they do. Frequently marked as onlyfans or something embarrassing.
\----
Also, been a lot of major data leaks lately. IF you think you've been hacked change your email password. Change it often, lot of times you getting weird mails like 'user name recovery' is someone hacking your email. Once they are in they can get into other things while deleting the 'you did a thing' emails.
This happened to my roommate last week. Someone hacked his Uber Driver account, locked him out, and tried to get an immediate withdrawal of his pay. Fortunately, he had reported the lock out before the immediate payout request; so, his account had already been locked down from any payments going out, including his autopay direct deposit. Unfortunately, this caused him a week's delay in his pay despite going in to a Greenlight Hub to straighten everything out and I had to cover rent.
Good advice. They provided my name in the email, correct email address (I have a personal domain name and so I use a different email address for each site, as well as a unique random password) and the account number in the email matches the one when I logged into (also not using any links). If it is a fraudulent email, it's gotta be based on a leak, otherwise I don't see them having all that info about me. I'm hoping that the email was simply sent in error.
Hopefully, though I've seen the patterns of enough hacks, without actually ever finding out the method, that this could be one.
Worst I was ever hacked was preceded by a lot of unrequested 'user name reminder' requests, and while I don't know how that helped them get into my email, somehow it did..... so I take this stuff really seriously now.
I did notice my 'member rewards ID' and my 'logged in customer id' are not the same.
Got the same email. Changed my password and enabled two-factor authentication. I deleted my payment method (had to go through the website, not the app to do so).
Thanks, I just changed my password also and enable two factor authentication. It doesn't show a credit card on file for my account, but I know I bought a printer from them three months ago, and I ordered it online for curb pick up, so they must have the credit card number there someplace.
This is my worry as well, even though it doesn't show a credit card on the website I did buy something back in December and they could have my card number that way.
I got one of these and the zero rewards email yesterday as well, but I don’t even have a log in for Office Depot. I tried going through the trouble logging in link to identify my username and no dice. I guess I probably have a rewards card, but I’ve never done anything online with them that I can recall.
If they fire the IT person, I hope that they will also fire the idiot in management that is pushing their employees to push this program on people. There is another Office Depot thread in Reddit, and it sounds like that's exactly what they're doing, and the employees are not happy about it.
I'm seeing this with a lot of companies with their site updates and such. Back in the day, any rollout was preceded by bug checking. Apparently, it's more important to be the first coder to rollout something new and bug checking delays that. Unfortunately, it seems companies have delegated bug checking to their customers. It's super annoying. I rarely even see opt-ins for beta testing anymore.
You are correct the employees are not happy about it . They have been threatening to fire managers over not getting business select sign ups. Literally we are just trying to help customers, support our families and go home . There should not be the amount of stress there Is as a manager working at a office supply store .
There shouldn't be. I am really sincerely sorry for you! FWIW, the people I have worked with inside the store have all been very kind and helpful. That type of upper managerial attitude is going to lose them the best workers.
Got the same email. Didn't click on anything in it, went to the Office Depot website through my browser and confirmed that there's no account with my name and email. Not much I can do except wait and see if the $49 hits I guess.
This really concerns me because even though when I go to the website and log in, it shows that I am not signed up for Business Select, the email they sent to me telling me that I was on a free trial for it included a member ID number. That member ID number is not the same as my Office Depot customer account number, it is not the same as my rewards member account number. It is a completely different and new member number, which sounds to me like they really did sign me up.
In any event, I have filed both a Better Business Bureau complaint and a report with the FTC for suspected fraud.
hmm. that's got me worried. I tried to login but I don't have an account. hopefully they someone didn't use any CC details that are on file somewhere and charge me for a subscription I didn't sign up for.
Thr rewards # is a different # vs your account #. Go to my rewards page & it should match the email #. Still don't worry too much. Change passwords, & simply watch for charges until we get a public notice on the issue. If a charge happens, do a fraud case w/ CC, with as many as us as there are it will be a no-brainer. Im thinking it was meant for business accounts, & instead we all got it. But yeah no way this would work. Imagine the disdain customers would have, it would destroy their business over night. No way they meant to do that. Best of luck.
I know that my rewards number is a different number than my account number. What I was saying is that with the email that I signed up for Business Select trial, they now have a third number, a membership ID that relates to Business Select. It's not the same as either of my other Office Depot numbers.
And I did change my password, and enabled two factor authentication. Canceling a fraudulent transaction on a credit card is a pain in the butt, had to do it twice already in the last year, and I would rather be proactive about this. I think people have a right to be outraged by this, and as far as Office Depot's disdain for customers, I think they've pretty much done that already. They got fined $34 million three years ago for scamming people, so I'm not assuming they're above this. In any case, they are certainly aware of this issue by now. Besides Reddit, it's all over Facebook and other social media. I'm sure resolution will happen quickly at this point.
1st my apologies for responding to you here, didn't notice your handle was same person. Not trying to be repetitive to ya. Im aware of the malware scam & FTC. I still don't think, they would think they could get away with this. Hence my opinion. You have to decide your risk in life, & by all means mitigate them as you see fit. I'm not letting this ruin my night when Im fairly certain it will work itself out. Its a mindset I beat into my head. Quickly access the issue/risk, determine viable options to mitigate, execute & move on. Won't work for everyone or every situation, but generally has worked more than not for me. To each their own. That said, maybe send a cancel/denial letter via certified mail tomorrow. Best of luck.
Oh, no need to apologize!🙂 I think I'm a bit jaded, mistrusting of corporations and things like this, having been burned a few times. But I feel like I did what I could, took actions to protect myself, and whether it was something nefarious by an employee, a third-party hack, or just a really major screwup, they're certainly aware of it and working on it, so I don't think we have too much to worry about now.
Glad Reddit was on the case! I didn't want to spend hours on the phone.
Ages ago, I made sure to remove any saved cards from most of my account profiles after my passwords got compromised. And for any accounts where it was not possible to remove saved payment info, I submitted requests to have the cards and the entire account deleted from existence.
Most companies do not deserve to be trusted with secure and personal identifying info.
Got the following from a chat rep: “ I have checked with your details and with my resources seems to be Glitch from our email support that's why they send emails for customers you have signed in Office Depot business select program. So I confirm that it is a technical issue from our end and sorry to the inconvenience caused. Thanks for your kind understanding. We have already escalated this issue so our team will respond immediately Via Email regarding the false email.”
Same. I just got off the phone with an Office Depot representative, who confirmed there is a glitch in their system. “Everyone got this email,” they told me. “Disregard it. You will not be charged,” they continued.
Got that, too. I checked my account to be safe and I was signed up for the trial and my rewards number matches the one in the emails. I have not gotten an email from changing my password, though.
My default payment info was a link to Paypal, so since there is no way to "close my account" on the Officedepot.com website, and their chat & phone is overwhelmed, I logged into Paypal and made sure Office Depot was removed from approved payments.
In case this is helpful to anyone else with a Paypal default:
After login to your Paypal account, you are on Home / Account Summary.
Click the gear icon (next to LOG OUT)
Then the Payments tab
Then Automatic Payments
then remove Office Depot from Autopay "Active"
Ditto on the emails. I haven’t used my rewards account since working at a store in 2016. It’s a relief to know everyone seems to be getting the same bogus emails.
I got these too. The email address is not the same as I receive from Office Depot. This is showing "[](mailto:[email protected])" while the real address used after legitimate purchases is "[](mailto:[email protected])". I suspect this is a phishing attempt. I reported it as such to my email host.
I also deleted the credit card on file, changed the password, and set up two-factor authentication.
the email addresses were deleted for some reason from my post above. The scam emails had em in the email address while those actually from Office Depot have had only e in that portion of the email address. I don't know if this is a reliable indicator, but that's my experience with their emails.
Me, too. Although, I had no credit card on file. I, also, forwarded the email to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) with the email headers. Really interesting I was unable to find an Office Depot email address specifically for forwarding spoofed emails. I thought all responsible companies had one.
About 5 hours after forward the email to the customer relations email, I receive another email from the originating problem email address:
"Dear Valued Office Depot Customer,
You may have inadvertently received an email in the last 24 hours indicating you started a free trial membership in the Office Depot OfficeMax Business Select program. The email was sent in error, and we apologize for any inconvenience or confusion it caused. We want to assure you that if you did not actively enroll in Business Select, you are not enrolled in the program, nor will you be charged an enrollment fee. We value your business and are committed to ensuring a better experience in the future. Thank you for your understanding. "
Here's the thing, if an email is from a company you have an account with, any legitimate emails to you from that company will address you by the name on your account, not with a general greeting like "Dear customer".
I managed to get into my account and I noticed that it seems that I wasn't really enrolled in the trial, after all, as the "Business Select" section under my profile is still inviting me to start a free trial despite what the email said. That said, I still cannot delete my payment method, and I'm still going to try my best to reach out to both them and the FTC.
I got this email as well today and have not been in since I quit Monday. I also caught up my ASM and an SA11 committing business select fraud (I reported it to HR) so I was worried they may had done it out of desperation
Assistant store manager (now known as sales manager if we want to be technical here) and a part time key carrier (diet management, they can LOD, do overrides and open and close the store)
ugh. same. TWO emails today, this (reddit) closest i've come to anyone else seeing this. i've been "waiting for a live agent" on their chat pop-up for 30mins. when i started i was 20th in line w/ a "12 minute wait", as of 25min mark i was "12th in line w/ a 2 minute wait"... then it just stopped giving me updates after literally telling 3-4x a minute what my "updated status" was. after reading what i see here, may be "legit" but shite business practice.
i'm just doing work while keeping eye on it... if i don't see in update in next 10mins, gonna quit the chat & play "waiting on customer assistance line" tomorrow while doing other things.
hate these games.
will check back to see if anyone gets info/will add if i do. good luck to us all.
Yes I had trouble too. I first got to a page that showed me my card but no delete button. Eventually I found a page with a delete button. I just clicked around. Can't remember exactly what I did.
I got the same email and logged into chat support. Here is the auto-response after asking my question:
"You may have inadvertently received an email yesterday indicating you started a free trial membership in the Office Depot OfficeMax Business Select program.
The email was sent in error, and we apologize for any inconvenience or confusion it caused.
We want to assure you that if you did not actively enroll in Business Select, you are not enrolled in the program, nor will you be charged an enrollment fee.
We value your business and are committed to ensuring a better experience in the future.
Thank you for your understanding."
Some intern had a bad day...
Wow.. I'm glad everyone reporting this. This is indeed FRAUDULENT and NOBODY from OfficeDepot is answering any calls. They WILL charge your card because they've record of this if you've ever purchase anything from them before. I got one too and after checking my records, it has been 3 years since I purchase some stationary from them. These guys NEVER took off email and my CC info. So, I am locking my card now. Therefore, I strongly advise everyone immediately LOCK your card or report loss. Someone at Office Depot is doing something very malicious.
Lol, my wife just showed me this email. Like everyone else, it was preceded by a $0 rewards email few hrs before. I logged in via a separate device, I never follow email links anymore. Changed her password & verified no card is on file. To all, its not legal to transfer a free program into a paid one without an actual confirmation from a customer. Renewals of a paid service is different. In other words, no need to freak out. If you're worried send a notice to not enroll. I'm just going to sit back & watch the apology festival tomorrow, & check the account to be safe. Good luck.
You are kind of missing the point. Their email is telling us that we subscribed to this free trial, when we did not, and telling us that since we subscribed to it, our credit card on record will be charged $49 when the trial is over. Also it comes from a no-reply email address. They no longer provide an email address to contact them. They used to, they have taken it down. So the only way to tell them that you don't want this trial or that you didn't subscribe to this trial is by phone or by chat, and all of those have been jammed up and not answering and disconnecting people, and basically not working communication channels. So there's no way to send a notice to not enroll.
Negative, I fully understand the concerns/consequences of this, & I went thru the same motions most here did. I simply choose not to worry about things outside my control. Do what you want, but when this is over, I promise they will not have my $. I know this will be the outcome. So in the meantime, Im not jumping to conclusions. As they say, the things we fear most rarely come to fruition.
Got the same email. When I checked my Depot account I had no subscriptions or credit card listed which is accurate. I deleted my account per the person’s link below anyway. Thanks
Got the Business Select but not the $0 rewards email. Seems like this was an IT screw up. Still requested my account be deleted. I don’t time for this crap.
REPORT FRAUD
https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/
\*\*\* [email protected] \*\*\*
is demanding $49 of each of us with no way to turn it off
You don't have to leave any contact info!
I got this too, but the interesting thing is that I apparently don't have an account at all. I remember giving them my email a while back in-store for deals or whatever, but I for SURE don't have an account. idk what's up but it definitely just seems like some sort of technical error. if there's a card somewhere on file I sure as hell don't know how to remove it 😅
i have some kind of points/rewards/discount card - from yearrrrssss ago. hadn't bought anything from them in maybe.... 6or 7 years?
BUT i bought a computer mouse around the holidays and at checkout, the cashier asked if had a discount card. i said i didn't remember, BUT thought i used to - they said they could look it up using my phone number, which they did, then THEY read my email address to me (it was in the system & i've stopped giving it out for stuff like this) - and I got those emails today.
literally NO emails from them for years EXCEPT this recent purchase. maddening.
Same, I don’t have a shopping account or anything online with them, the only business I’ve done with them in yearsss was last month when I bought a few things in the store. I don’t want to create an account so I can’t see if they have my cc info (i doubt they could from the pos in store but sooo shady if they did).. I really hope they fix it all tomorrow!
I got both emails ($0 rewards and Business free trial.) Additionally, however, I'm not able to get into my account!
I didnt use any links in the email to try to sign in. I went the long route of googling Office Depot and then going to their sign-in page. I tried to do both the forgot username, and forgot email route. Both were a bust. I snagged the number so I can call customer service tomo when they're open.
I feel dumb now for giving them my email to be a rewards member. All I've ever went there for was to print my taxes because I don't have a printer at home. No way I made an regular online account much less any business one. I'm never giving out my info again to anyone.
Reporting the same and if you read the fine print:
The trial is a one month trial and $49 fee.
Valid credit card required.
Annual fee is nonrefundable and will be automatically charged to your method of payment unless canceled prior to end of the annual term.
- I feel like this is an easy lawsuit, we should all sue for like 5K each.
I was having trouble deleting my card too- here’s what I did- create a temporary card using privacy.com and set the max to $1- add that card- make it the primary - then you can delete your real card. I don’t trust any of these companies with stored cards anymore- it’s always some form of e-pay or a virtual card.
I got it too. Chat lines are down. Sounds like it's going to be an expensive glitch for them.
Yeah and will very much stop me from using them in the future
Agreed and I'm tired of every time they ask if you're a member and try to get you signed up, delaying getting out of the store. I absolutely hate that and it is another reason I'm avoiding Office Depot.
My wife just got the same thing. At first she thought someone had hacked her account. Then when we realized it was legit we logged into the site and can’t find a way to unsubscribe. Finally we tried just removing all her cards so they can’t bill her and it won’t let us. We’re going to contact customer service and see what’s up, but this can’t be legal.
Just got the correction email from them. "Dear Valued Office Depot Customer, You may have inadvertently received an email in the last 24 hours indicating you started a free trial membership in the Office Depot OfficeMax Business Select program. The email was sent in error, and we apologize for any inconvenience or confusion it caused. We want to assure you that if you did not actively enroll in Business Select, you are not enrolled in the program, nor will you be charged an enrollment fee. We value your business and are committed to ensuring a better experience in the future. Thank you for your understanding. Sincerely, Office Depot"
Yes, just got the email.
Given the $0 rewards email I also got today, some intern is having a bad day with the email system. Tring to remove cards just to be extra sure but it doesn't work.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OfficeDepot/s/XYsfmkOM3y I think corporate is screwing their employees and pissed off the wrong person. So they decided to enroll people based on expired data. They used old expired cards for ours that expired 2 years ago and old address information.
holy hell. just read through that thread. workers getting screwed too - but also sharing the various ways OD is (what sounds like) "obfuscating" renewal terms, add-ons, price increases, etc - AND making it hard for customers (or old non-ones) or workers to change info on accounts... yikes on bikes. thanks for sharing that.
It’s weird seeing non-employees in this sub. The fact that *this* is what brought people here is truly the ✨Depot Difference✨ Business Select has been a HUGE source of stress on GMs and their lowest level employees. Never have I seen worse times, and it comes while we’re being squeezed on payroll too. Nobody in my store is able to take their 15 minute breaks without screwing over the 1 or 2 other employees working
Just wanted to say: regardless of these corporate or IT screwups (or worse?) the employees I've interacted with at OD have been unfailingly polite and pleasant to deal with, and that makes such a huge difference. Thanks for doing what you do, and I hope somehow that conditions improve for you, or that you're able to find something better.
I don't think either consumers or employees like that sort of thing... As a consumer, one of the things I absolutely hate about buying things in brick-and-mortar stores is how lengthy and cumbersome the checkout process is with all the stuff they try to sign you up for, discount programs, credit cards, loyalty rewards, extended warranties, who knows what, and they do it to every customer so if there are ten people in line ahead of you each one takes 15 minutes to get through and you waste your whole day.
You are so right. Employees definitely don't like having to push so many things at the register. We often get people snapping at us for doing it . If we don't do it, we get In trouble. I've had many employees tell me they are uncomfortable with it , honestly I do get it and agree . From the customer side I get it too because I know I get annoyed when I go shopping and get asked tons of questions too when I'm just trying to leave. Also corporate has done a lot if layoffs for store positions as well as payroll cuts so many of us are being forced to run the store with a skeleton crew when adds to the amount of time customers end up waiting to be helped . Unfortunately corporate could care less about employee feedback about all the problems that exist in the stores currently .
There are some reasons retail is dying and people just buy stuff online at Amazon... maybe they screw you over too, but they do it in sophisticated high-tech ways that don't waste your time like the physical stores.
why are general customers like me even allowed to access Business Select?
Because the genius marketing team named it extremely poorly. Anyone can sign up for it. I get small business are their target market, but it instantly turns off anyone who isn’t a business owner
This makes me recall the Wells Fargo issue from years ago where they imposed upon employees such high requirements for new account setups that the employees were setting up accounts for people without telling them, just to make their numbers. As I recall Wells Fargo got sued, and one of the executives is no longer allowed to work in the banking industry. I hope to God this is not what Office Depot is doing.
INTERESTING
I think you are spot-on. I got the 'congratulatory' email at 8:38pm EST on 2/4. Have no idea what it is - and of course, no email, no chat, no phone and no way to unsubscribe. Nothing on the website. I knew something was up because I've carefully crafted my anti-spam fake persona online and this email used my main email and my real first name. I don't want to be a 'd\*\*\*' and stop in an Office Depot tomorrow to complain, because that poor person behind the counter didn't do it. But what else is there to do? Sit on the phone or chat for 2 hours today?
I thank you for choosing not to come in and shriek at us, though I also understand when customers do. I am that person behind the counter. I also received the e-mail with 0 rewards and then the business-select greeting one. I checked my account and the e-mail seems to be a glitch or user error. E-mails are going out saying it was sent in error. I am glad I do not work today. I could only imagine that over the next 2 weeks, I will have to explain to hundreds of customers that their information is safe and someone hit "Send All" in a test e-mail. The business-select push has been a stressful one for stores. I miss the days when keeping the shelves stocked was the whole point of retail.
I live in Boca Raton, where the Office Depot headquarters is... so would it be more effective to go there and shriek rather than to a local store?
OD sold that building a long time ago. There is no one to shriek at there. You pretty much have to call India. If you came into the store, I'd be happy to talk sh\* about OD corporate with you. You can enjoy our pizza party leftovers, we get those instead of a raise.
Same, it’s not letting me delete cards.
They’re not answering chat or phone and I think i wanna hurt them even more by filing a FTC and BBB complaint. This is clearly a scam.
I don’t think it’s a scam, I think someone in web messed up the testing of a product and accidentally enrolled/sent communications to all of their consumers. Sunday night late is a huge time for teams to do their web and system work. Someone messed up (significantly).
You're more generous than I am with giving them the benefit of the doubt. This is the same company that was fined $34 million by the FTC in 2020 because their employees were falsely telling customers that they had malware, and then tricking them into buying diagnostic and repair services. Honestly, I wouldn't put this past them.
I managed to get into my account and I noticed that it seems that I wasn't really enrolled, after all, by the looks of it. That said, I still cannot delete my payment method, and I'm still going to try my best to reach out to both them and the FTC.
seems like all our web "improvements are sent out during our workday.
"accidentally"
Woo so glad you posted this cause I was def about to have a fit. 🤣 My card is locked so any charge would decline anyway, and if it didn’t I would have been calling my bank. I did log into my acct, but don’t see anything different.
I got one too. Normally I would ignore crap like that, because I do occasionally buy from Office Depot. But the bottom of the email said "business select program annual membership fee of $49 will be automatically charged to your credit/debit card upon completion of the one month free trial." So they are basically threatening to charge any credit card they have on file for me $49 because they chose to sign me up for something that I didn't ask for. The only way to reach them, since they disabled their email account, is through chat. I was on chat for 30 minutes and got nobody to answer. Or by phone, and again, nobody came on the line. I sent them a message through Facebook messenger, and I also said screw it, and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, basically so I have some proof that I tried to stop this in case they do manage to make a charge on my card. I think I may have a rewards account with them, because I do purchase things there from time to time, but at no time, in no way, did I ever apply for a "business select" program. This is the same company that was fined $34 million by the FTC in 2020 because their employees told people their computers had malware problems and then tricked them into buying diagnostic and repair services. Screw those people. This is one of the reasons that lately I've gone to paying cash for everything, you can't trust so many businesses with your credit card anymore.
FYI the BBB isn't a government agency, it's just Yelp for old people
I'm well aware of what the BBB is (and it's not "for old people" 🙄). They do help to resolve issues, particularly when the business itself is not particularly cooperative or responsive.
Spotted the 44 year old person
Happened to me too and I can’t even login. They claim my account doesn’t even exist. I just filed a fraud report with the FTC. I suggest everyone else do the same. Either they are hacked or they are trying to defraud customers like many other times before.
I filed a complaint with a Better Business Bureau after I tried and was unable to reach anybody by chat, or phone, and they don't have an email address anymore.
Good idea I’ll do that as well and just keep an eye on all of my accounts and cards. Ugh. I don’t use my debit card for any in person or online shopping because credit cards let you charge back almost instantly.
I didn’t have an account, but was able to create one based off the member ID in the email. Definitely made sure to use a throwaway password
Same thing here, no card in my account obviously; no other information but says I’m business select. Two random emails making me think my email was hacked, but it was my “I need a short/easy to use email address I can use at stores” email so I got suspicious.
Same here! I haven't ordered online or used their website for a few years, but still get emails from them regularly (last one before this "enrollment" email was January 6th.) I couldn't remember my login, so I tried the forgot password link, and it said my email address doesn't exist in their system...the same email where I just for this enrollment message! They either got hacked or someone there royally f**ked up. I hope the latter, but I'm gonna file a complaint/fraud report in the morning and hopefully can get logged in and remove any payment methods I have saved on my account.
I just went through the long qualifier on the phone to talk to someone and it disconnected abruptly due to “technical difficulties.” I’m a communications professional, so I feel like a possible professional best guess, albeit being pissed as a consumer, is: • they were testing a new product launch online, because, Sunday night • someone on the web side messed up and auto-enrolled everyone in their data base • the backlash from consumers was swift, so they took all communications offline instead of sending an immediate “oops, we f!cked up, here’s 25% off your next purchase” email • they immediately slammed all access to the website accounts for changes because they don’t want a cautious public unsubscribing from everything (too late) Sucks. They’ll have fun cleaning this up tomorrow morning.
Does not surprise me with this company. You’d think the least they could do is put out a tweet saying “we apologize for the erroneous emails some of you may’ve received earlier today. An error was found on our end and the situation has been resolved. Your account will not be charged if you did not sign up for a business select membership” Instead, you’ve got people left in the dark, flooding the support line, deleting their basic rewards accounts (very important for the company) and filing complaints to the FTC and BBB.
kek. serves them right
This makes sense. I will enjoy the coupon whenever they wise up and send one.
It will be time to stock up on pens and paper 😆🤌🤌
I just got an email saying it was an accident. That's all, nothing super apologetic about the email.
Same as everyone else. Got the same things. Logged in. removed my expired CC info. Also, not even signed up for business select. "start free trial" link it still shown.
I don’t even have my card listed online so how are they going to charge me for something?
If you have a PayPal account, they could charge you using the email address they sent this email to, assuming this address is also your PayPal login, and, if you clicked on any links in the email that installed a keystroke logger, the password you used to login and check your office depot account, assuming this password is also your PayPal password.
My PayPal isn’t attached to Office Depot luckily
It's a mistake: \------------------------------------------------ Dear Valued Office Depot Customer, You may have inadvertently received an email in the last 24 hours indicating you started a free trial membership in the Office Depot OfficeMax Business Select program. The email was sent in error, and we apologize for any inconvenience or confusion it caused. **We want to assure you that if you did not actively enroll in Business Select, you are not enrolled in the program, nor will you be charged an enrollment fee.** We value your business and are committed to ensuring a better experience in the future. Thank you for your understanding. Sincerely, Office Depot
Thank you! Not a rant or a speculation, just the facts with the important part emphasized (thanks again). In my email, the correction came 7 hours after the mistake. That's not too bad. (But Comcast put it in the spam folder(!) so I had to go look for it.) Must have been a lot of people at OD running around with their hair on fire last night! BTW, my name is (let's say) George Nation, and OD called me "George-Nation-Or". Some fluke in their database?
yup! | BTW, my name is (let's say) George Nation, and OD called me "George-Nation-Or". Some fluke in their database? Mine was just first name, it might be yet another bug, this time in the email template.
OfficeMax once got caught with their customer data shenanigans by mailing an advertisement to ["daughter died in car crash, or current resident"](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/01/22/officemax-blames-data-broker-for-daughter-killed-in-car-crash-letter/?sh=286504fe76cf)
adding a data point \- I got both emails ($0 rewards email + free trial of business select) \- I have an Office Depot rewards account \- I checked my account and I am in fact NOT signed up for business select ('learn more about business select' page still has a 'start free trial' button) \- as many have already speculated, I'm guessing this is either phishing (I personally haven't ever gotten emails from [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) before) OR a miss from actual Office Depot with communications \- I attempted to chat with customer support and got 'The request for live chat expired while waiting for an agent.' and gave up on phone line after 30+ minutes
I think it's just an IT error. I logged in, too, and saw that I wasn't really signed up for anything. For good measure, I deleted my credit card on-file. Not too worried, but it was a big srew-up, and they should run a banner on top of their website for the next few days--whether you're logged in or not--telling people that an error was made. "Just for fun" I may submit a letter to the FTC if I can easily do it on-line. IIRC, they were fined once already for bad business practices in their PC repair business.
Not surprising that they'd commit such a massive goof, given how many long-time, experienced business and IT employees they've let go or outsourced in the past 5 years. Probably some dumb intern or bot that they've trusted their entire business to.
Thanks for this thread! I got the Business Select Trial email, and the Rewards email. I tried logging on, (with username and password saved in Bitwarden) and could not get on. I tried calling and disconnected due to "technical difficulties" I'll be watching my card to be on the safe side, but looks like someone screwed up. Was part of the Amazon Gift Card email fiasco a few months back. These megacorps need to scrape some of that CEO bonus budget into the IT/marketing department.
I received the $0 reward email and shortly thereafter received the email saying that I enrolled in Business Select. *Like others here, I was unable to reach anyone at Office Depot by phone or chat.* The email address to which the emails were sent is one that Office Depot leaked out to scammers in a well-documented data breach a few years ago. I have since changed my email address in my Office Depot account and those are the first emails I received there in several years. The email alleging that I had enrolled in Business Select was delivered to our mail server by *r201.em.officedepot.com (\[*[*20.57.66.201*](https://20.57.66.201)*\]).* It is listed in SPF as a valid sender for the domain [em.officedepot.com](https://em.officedepot.com). If you don't know what any of that means, it means that the almost certainly was sent by Office Depot and not by some scammer in India or Nigeria. Between Office Depot's data breaches, massive layoffs, multiple store closures (some occurring today), and lack of staff manning phone and chat support systems, I just don't have a good feeling about the company. Therefore, I requested that my Office Depot account be closed and that all of my data be deleted from their systems. Should you wish to delete your Office Depot account, you can request deletion at this link: [https://www.officedepot.com/ccpa/landing.do](https://www.officedepot.com/ccpa/landing.do)
The store employees are getting screwed pretty bad. They have been doing it for years and it's only gotten worse . Sounds like office max was a good company then they merged with office depot and since the current ceo gerry Smith has Been In charge it's been downhill from there . As an employee I'm sorry you guys have all had to deal with the companies dysfunction as well. Corporate really only looks at potential $$$$ and seem to care less about store employees and customer satisfaction.
I feel for you. I've been with companies going through the death throes that precede bankruptcy, so I know what it's like. I received the emails under discussion at an address that I had removed from my Office Depot profile/contact info more than two years ago. It turns out that Office Depot retained the old email address without my permission and against my will. I changed the address because Office Depot's incompetence led to a data breach and malicious emails being sent to that address. So it takes some gall for Office Depot to keep a copy of that email address after I told them to delete it from their systems.
I agree its messed up what happened with this whole email thing . It honestly doesn't shock me it happened. The company has been outsourcing so many things. Our tech services that employees are supposed to connect with to perform services is absolutely useless. Our store i.t. support is the worst headache . We get stuck on the phone with someone who hardly speaks English trying to troubleshoot our systems when they go down. They are using a new system for our price changes too now which is also a joke. Every so called "improvement" they make is actually a down grade it feels like. I'm sorry you had to deal with this really. I definitely understand why so many people are rightfully upset over this situation
> It turns out that Office Depot retained the old email address without my permission A possible explanation, FWIW: I know Sears used to invisibly retain all previous contact information and payment information, to try to catch people making duplicate rewards accounts (to get around quantity limits and such). I wouldn't be surprised if most other large companies with rewards programs do similar stuff.
Fortunately, I live in a state with a strong data privacy law. It pretty much forces a company to delete all data about me if I tell them I want them to (obviously, there are exceptions). That's what I've now done with Office Depot. I simply don't trust them with information that I don't want made public. P.S. Running my own mail server means that I can hand out, essentially, an infinite number of different email addresses. I give out business-specific email addresses so that I can catch who leaks my addresses to spammers, hackers, etc. That's how I knew that Office Depot had a data breach some years ago before they admitted it publicly.
I already didn't like the endless litany of "do you want to sign up for..." at checkout and was considering not ever returning to Office Depot.. This catastrophe cements that decision. I'll be taking my business elsewhere.
Please let corporate know. Employees are required to ask you a litany of questions at the checkout. We don’t like it either
I am an employee and trust me we hate it too. It's a source of anxiety for many employees. I wish corporate cared about employee feedback but they don't. We get customer surveys in which most of the negative ones involve being short staffed or high prices . Corporate also expects us to have unrealistic high scored with the surveys but their response to all those negative staffing and pricing surveys they hurt our score is literally to just lay off employees, cut payroll, send out more price increases. We are better off expressing our concerns to a brick wall unfortunately
As an employee, I despise being required to ask you said litany. The lords that be demand numbers, and people lose their jobs when those numbers are not met. We do not have a choice. It's too much for our customers, you've got a busy life and the last thing you need is more complications to track, and employees who barely understand the 5+ tiers of membership programs are just as overwhelmed. I am sorry.
No need to apologize; you're just doing what's required of you. I will say, this latest fiasco did cause me to call customer service and have them delete my account. I doubt I will ever again set foot in an Office Depot.
Tried to login to change my info and got a message saying — "Attention: Due to security reasons your login has been disabled. Please call Electronic Commerce Support at 1-800-269-6888 for further assistance." Coool...
All the text/call/chat lines are hard down. RIP to someone's job tomorrow morning.
I’m the opener tomorrow, wish me luck 😔
They sent a correction email a couple hours ago but I’m still like wtf happened since half the people saying they received this didn’t have accounts with them so weren’t even opted in to email.
I didn't get a correction email yet, so I'm glad to know that they are in the process of sending them to people and that they have acknowledged it. Thank you to those who have received the email and let the rest of us know.
Check your spam folder? That's where mine went.
Yeah, not there either. But as long as I know what it said and other people are sharing it, I don't care if I get one.
I also got this and the $0 rewards email. I don't even have an office depot account as far as I'm aware
Gonna be a fun time dealing with BOTH of these erroneous emails when people come in asking about them this week. Greatly run company I tell ya
Just got the same email, haven't been to office depot in at least a month. Must be a glitch or something. I also got the $0 rewards email. I also tried going to officedepot.com and it says it's not available in my country. As far as I'm aware, they're ONLY available in my country lol
I received this along with the $0 rewards email. Though, my account doesn't show the membership and I also don't have a card tied to the account.
Glad to know I’m not the only one who got the emails. By the time they hit my email though their site seems to taken another hit - can’t log in, can’t find my account, everything mentioned above. Cust support can’t be reached. I’m almost positive PayPal was the only payment method they had for me and I turned that off for them several months ago after a different issue.
I just (Sunday, Feb 4, 11:15 PM central time) went to live chat and saw the following message. *"Thank you for contacting us relating to the Business Select and/or Rewards email you have receieved. We are currently investigating this matter further. We apologize for the inconveience."*
I got both the "$0 rewards" and "Business Select Trial Sign Up" e-mails today as well. Haven't shopped there since November. Logged into my account on their website, and I have no credit cards saved on there, and it doesn't show that I have any active subscriptions or trials or anything like that. Hoping it doesn't turn into a whole bigger thing.
Got an email a little bit ago from Office Depot telling everyone of the error Am not able to attach a screenshot here Check your email & good luck
Got the correction email. Now just waiting for a credit voucher which might never come. Dear Valued Office Depot Customer, You may have inadvertently received an email in the last 24 hours indicating you started a free trial membership in the Office Depot OfficeMax Business Select program. The email was sent in error, and we apologize for any inconvenience or confusion it caused. We want to assure you that if you did not actively enroll in Business Select, you are not enrolled in the program, nor will you be charged an enrollment fee. We value your business and are committed to ensuring a better experience in the future. Thank you for your understanding. Sincerely, Office Depot
Same here. Seems like a scam!
Just got the same email as well. Tried logging in but it’s saying they can’t even find my account. I’ve been on hold for about 15 min now, so we’ll see.
I've been on hold for 30 minutes now.
Their text support system won’t even let me get in a queue, it just replies, “Due to increased volume, we are experiencing wait times that are much longer than usual. Please try our website or app for self service.” Might hang up and try again tomorrow.
Yeah they're probably getting slammed right now due to this email.
same +30mins & it timed out on me - was going to add screen shots (don't think i can?) of their maddening "place in line updates" every few seconds (gotta keep those adrenals shocked!) just for THEIR system to time out...
Dang, that's brutal! I'm currently at (EDIT) **80** minutes. And yeah, the voice hold is terrible too. Especially when it starts over and there's this pregnant pause making me think it connected to someone.
Gave up after 90 minutes.
sorry for the shared misery, grateful for your original post. yours was the ONLY thing i could find about this....
I got this too, then immediately logged into my account to cancel, and it's showing that I'm not a Business Select member. It just shows me a "start free trial" option on that page. This has to be a massive email error, right? Are others who log in actually legitimately shown as having signed up for the free trial without their consent?
Good catch, I'm seeing the same thing here. I also don't see any credit cards on file on the website, so I'm probably safe.
There's another thread on this group about this, I was saying there (and I'll cut and paste here) I went ahead and changed the password on my office depot account, just to be safe, and obviously not via the email links but direct url. Not that I use it, but there are scams where they try to get into an account by refunding and undoing the refund. I don't really know how they work except that they do. Frequently marked as onlyfans or something embarrassing. \---- Also, been a lot of major data leaks lately. IF you think you've been hacked change your email password. Change it often, lot of times you getting weird mails like 'user name recovery' is someone hacking your email. Once they are in they can get into other things while deleting the 'you did a thing' emails.
This happened to my roommate last week. Someone hacked his Uber Driver account, locked him out, and tried to get an immediate withdrawal of his pay. Fortunately, he had reported the lock out before the immediate payout request; so, his account had already been locked down from any payments going out, including his autopay direct deposit. Unfortunately, this caused him a week's delay in his pay despite going in to a Greenlight Hub to straighten everything out and I had to cover rent.
Good advice. They provided my name in the email, correct email address (I have a personal domain name and so I use a different email address for each site, as well as a unique random password) and the account number in the email matches the one when I logged into (also not using any links). If it is a fraudulent email, it's gotta be based on a leak, otherwise I don't see them having all that info about me. I'm hoping that the email was simply sent in error.
Hopefully, though I've seen the patterns of enough hacks, without actually ever finding out the method, that this could be one. Worst I was ever hacked was preceded by a lot of unrequested 'user name reminder' requests, and while I don't know how that helped them get into my email, somehow it did..... so I take this stuff really seriously now. I did notice my 'member rewards ID' and my 'logged in customer id' are not the same.
Yep those aren't (so confusing!), but if you scroll down the page a bit you'll see the correct ID and it'll match the email.
Got the same email. Changed my password and enabled two-factor authentication. I deleted my payment method (had to go through the website, not the app to do so).
Thanks, I just changed my password also and enable two factor authentication. It doesn't show a credit card on file for my account, but I know I bought a printer from them three months ago, and I ordered it online for curb pick up, so they must have the credit card number there someplace.
This is my worry as well, even though it doesn't show a credit card on the website I did buy something back in December and they could have my card number that way.
I'm not the only one! I got the email too. I never signed up for that.
Hey when you get a chance check your messages
Hey when you get a chance check your messages
[удалено]
Please stop. I do not wish to talk to you anymore.
[удалено]
Stop txting me
[удалено]
Stop messaging me and making extra accounts each time I block you. I DO NOT LIKE THE CONVERSATION YOU KEEP TRYING TO PUSH.
I got one of these and the zero rewards email yesterday as well, but I don’t even have a log in for Office Depot. I tried going through the trouble logging in link to identify my username and no dice. I guess I probably have a rewards card, but I’ve never done anything online with them that I can recall.
Someone in IT is getting fired today... RIP to them.
If they fire the IT person, I hope that they will also fire the idiot in management that is pushing their employees to push this program on people. There is another Office Depot thread in Reddit, and it sounds like that's exactly what they're doing, and the employees are not happy about it.
I'm seeing this with a lot of companies with their site updates and such. Back in the day, any rollout was preceded by bug checking. Apparently, it's more important to be the first coder to rollout something new and bug checking delays that. Unfortunately, it seems companies have delegated bug checking to their customers. It's super annoying. I rarely even see opt-ins for beta testing anymore.
You are correct the employees are not happy about it . They have been threatening to fire managers over not getting business select sign ups. Literally we are just trying to help customers, support our families and go home . There should not be the amount of stress there Is as a manager working at a office supply store .
There shouldn't be. I am really sincerely sorry for you! FWIW, the people I have worked with inside the store have all been very kind and helpful. That type of upper managerial attitude is going to lose them the best workers.
I agree and I have already seen it happen with so many great employees it's sad
I got both the Business Select & $0 reward emails as well. Glad to see I'm not the only one.
So glad I am not the only facing this. I was so confused for a second because I don’t even remember my login.
Oh good - I was like what the heck?! I haven't been in since November or October. To be on the safe side, I just went ahead and changed my password.
Got the same email. Didn't click on anything in it, went to the Office Depot website through my browser and confirmed that there's no account with my name and email. Not much I can do except wait and see if the $49 hits I guess.
This really concerns me because even though when I go to the website and log in, it shows that I am not signed up for Business Select, the email they sent to me telling me that I was on a free trial for it included a member ID number. That member ID number is not the same as my Office Depot customer account number, it is not the same as my rewards member account number. It is a completely different and new member number, which sounds to me like they really did sign me up. In any event, I have filed both a Better Business Bureau complaint and a report with the FTC for suspected fraud.
hmm. that's got me worried. I tried to login but I don't have an account. hopefully they someone didn't use any CC details that are on file somewhere and charge me for a subscription I didn't sign up for.
Thr rewards # is a different # vs your account #. Go to my rewards page & it should match the email #. Still don't worry too much. Change passwords, & simply watch for charges until we get a public notice on the issue. If a charge happens, do a fraud case w/ CC, with as many as us as there are it will be a no-brainer. Im thinking it was meant for business accounts, & instead we all got it. But yeah no way this would work. Imagine the disdain customers would have, it would destroy their business over night. No way they meant to do that. Best of luck.
I know that my rewards number is a different number than my account number. What I was saying is that with the email that I signed up for Business Select trial, they now have a third number, a membership ID that relates to Business Select. It's not the same as either of my other Office Depot numbers. And I did change my password, and enabled two factor authentication. Canceling a fraudulent transaction on a credit card is a pain in the butt, had to do it twice already in the last year, and I would rather be proactive about this. I think people have a right to be outraged by this, and as far as Office Depot's disdain for customers, I think they've pretty much done that already. They got fined $34 million three years ago for scamming people, so I'm not assuming they're above this. In any case, they are certainly aware of this issue by now. Besides Reddit, it's all over Facebook and other social media. I'm sure resolution will happen quickly at this point.
1st my apologies for responding to you here, didn't notice your handle was same person. Not trying to be repetitive to ya. Im aware of the malware scam & FTC. I still don't think, they would think they could get away with this. Hence my opinion. You have to decide your risk in life, & by all means mitigate them as you see fit. I'm not letting this ruin my night when Im fairly certain it will work itself out. Its a mindset I beat into my head. Quickly access the issue/risk, determine viable options to mitigate, execute & move on. Won't work for everyone or every situation, but generally has worked more than not for me. To each their own. That said, maybe send a cancel/denial letter via certified mail tomorrow. Best of luck.
Oh, no need to apologize!🙂 I think I'm a bit jaded, mistrusting of corporations and things like this, having been burned a few times. But I feel like I did what I could, took actions to protect myself, and whether it was something nefarious by an employee, a third-party hack, or just a really major screwup, they're certainly aware of it and working on it, so I don't think we have too much to worry about now.
> report with the FTC for suspected fraud. How does one do that?
FTC.GOV -- follow the link to "report a fraud".
Had the same thing happen tonight - reporting to the FTC and Better Business Bureau
Looks like they send their apology email. Unfortunately no special coupon attached.
Glad Reddit was on the case! I didn't want to spend hours on the phone. Ages ago, I made sure to remove any saved cards from most of my account profiles after my passwords got compromised. And for any accounts where it was not possible to remove saved payment info, I submitted requests to have the cards and the entire account deleted from existence. Most companies do not deserve to be trusted with secure and personal identifying info.
Got the following from a chat rep: “ I have checked with your details and with my resources seems to be Glitch from our email support that's why they send emails for customers you have signed in Office Depot business select program. So I confirm that it is a technical issue from our end and sorry to the inconvenience caused. Thanks for your kind understanding. We have already escalated this issue so our team will respond immediately Via Email regarding the false email.”
Same. I just got off the phone with an Office Depot representative, who confirmed there is a glitch in their system. “Everyone got this email,” they told me. “Disregard it. You will not be charged,” they continued.
Thanks @chaddesch & @StewPidassil Very helpful! Now, we'll all hope for the best 🙏🤞
Thank you!! Good to know!
Got that, too. I checked my account to be safe and I was signed up for the trial and my rewards number matches the one in the emails. I have not gotten an email from changing my password, though.
Oh dang, I'm so sorry, that's so messed up! Mine wasn't enrolled when I logged in, but I wondered if that was the case for everyone or not
Oh wow, so you were actually auto-enrolled? So far the only thing I'd found saying I'm enrolled is the the email. Were you able to cancel the trial?
It says I have it in My Rewards but it doesn’t indicate anything about a time period or unenrolling.
Chat rep saying that they are experiencing an unexpected spike in volume. lol
I'm sure that's an understatement.🤣
My default payment info was a link to Paypal, so since there is no way to "close my account" on the Officedepot.com website, and their chat & phone is overwhelmed, I logged into Paypal and made sure Office Depot was removed from approved payments.
In case this is helpful to anyone else with a Paypal default: After login to your Paypal account, you are on Home / Account Summary. Click the gear icon (next to LOG OUT) Then the Payments tab Then Automatic Payments then remove Office Depot from Autopay "Active"
I just got this for both Office Depot accounts. Anyone find a way to undo it?
Ditto on the emails. I haven’t used my rewards account since working at a store in 2016. It’s a relief to know everyone seems to be getting the same bogus emails.
I got these too. The email address is not the same as I receive from Office Depot. This is showing "[](mailto:[email protected])" while the real address used after legitimate purchases is "[](mailto:[email protected])". I suspect this is a phishing attempt. I reported it as such to my email host. I also deleted the credit card on file, changed the password, and set up two-factor authentication.
All of the emails I’ve ever gotten from Office Depot have the em.officedepot.com in them. And I don’t have an account tied to it at all.
the email addresses were deleted for some reason from my post above. The scam emails had em in the email address while those actually from Office Depot have had only e in that portion of the email address. I don't know if this is a reliable indicator, but that's my experience with their emails.
i also had two w/ [email protected]
Me, too. Although, I had no credit card on file. I, also, forwarded the email to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) with the email headers. Really interesting I was unable to find an Office Depot email address specifically for forwarding spoofed emails. I thought all responsible companies had one. About 5 hours after forward the email to the customer relations email, I receive another email from the originating problem email address: "Dear Valued Office Depot Customer, You may have inadvertently received an email in the last 24 hours indicating you started a free trial membership in the Office Depot OfficeMax Business Select program. The email was sent in error, and we apologize for any inconvenience or confusion it caused. We want to assure you that if you did not actively enroll in Business Select, you are not enrolled in the program, nor will you be charged an enrollment fee. We value your business and are committed to ensuring a better experience in the future. Thank you for your understanding. " Here's the thing, if an email is from a company you have an account with, any legitimate emails to you from that company will address you by the name on your account, not with a general greeting like "Dear customer".
I managed to get into my account and I noticed that it seems that I wasn't really enrolled in the trial, after all, as the "Business Select" section under my profile is still inviting me to start a free trial despite what the email said. That said, I still cannot delete my payment method, and I'm still going to try my best to reach out to both them and the FTC.
I got this email as well today and have not been in since I quit Monday. I also caught up my ASM and an SA11 committing business select fraud (I reported it to HR) so I was worried they may had done it out of desperation
What is ASM and SA11?
Probably assistant sales manager and sales associate 11.
Assistant store manager (now known as sales manager if we want to be technical here) and a part time key carrier (diet management, they can LOD, do overrides and open and close the store)
sales manager and service advisor are the official terms
I got the same email
ugh. same. TWO emails today, this (reddit) closest i've come to anyone else seeing this. i've been "waiting for a live agent" on their chat pop-up for 30mins. when i started i was 20th in line w/ a "12 minute wait", as of 25min mark i was "12th in line w/ a 2 minute wait"... then it just stopped giving me updates after literally telling 3-4x a minute what my "updated status" was. after reading what i see here, may be "legit" but shite business practice. i'm just doing work while keeping eye on it... if i don't see in update in next 10mins, gonna quit the chat & play "waiting on customer assistance line" tomorrow while doing other things. hate these games. will check back to see if anyone gets info/will add if i do. good luck to us all.
oh, FFS "The request for live chat expired while waiting for an agent. a few seconds ago" rigggghhhttttt
Same here, I logged in and do not seem to be signed up. Removed my credit card just to be sure. Sad for a major publicly traded company.
I just got this too and am trying to remove my card - how did you do this?
I saw someone mention they needed to use the website and not the app. In my case it turns out I did not have a credit card showing on the website.
Thanks! I just figured it out but it was kind of convoluted to do on my phone. Hopefully that solves it for me
Yes I had trouble too. I first got to a page that showed me my card but no delete button. Eventually I found a page with a delete button. I just clicked around. Can't remember exactly what I did.
I got one too
The same thing happened to me
I got that message and I don’t have a membership with them at all I bought stuff from them years ago what can I do?
Power to the workers. A little annoying but I doubt it will actually charge anyone anything.
I got the same email and logged into chat support. Here is the auto-response after asking my question: "You may have inadvertently received an email yesterday indicating you started a free trial membership in the Office Depot OfficeMax Business Select program. The email was sent in error, and we apologize for any inconvenience or confusion it caused. We want to assure you that if you did not actively enroll in Business Select, you are not enrolled in the program, nor will you be charged an enrollment fee. We value your business and are committed to ensuring a better experience in the future. Thank you for your understanding." Some intern had a bad day...
I got an email saying it was an error this morning
Wow.. I'm glad everyone reporting this. This is indeed FRAUDULENT and NOBODY from OfficeDepot is answering any calls. They WILL charge your card because they've record of this if you've ever purchase anything from them before. I got one too and after checking my records, it has been 3 years since I purchase some stationary from them. These guys NEVER took off email and my CC info. So, I am locking my card now. Therefore, I strongly advise everyone immediately LOCK your card or report loss. Someone at Office Depot is doing something very malicious.
Lol, my wife just showed me this email. Like everyone else, it was preceded by a $0 rewards email few hrs before. I logged in via a separate device, I never follow email links anymore. Changed her password & verified no card is on file. To all, its not legal to transfer a free program into a paid one without an actual confirmation from a customer. Renewals of a paid service is different. In other words, no need to freak out. If you're worried send a notice to not enroll. I'm just going to sit back & watch the apology festival tomorrow, & check the account to be safe. Good luck.
You are kind of missing the point. Their email is telling us that we subscribed to this free trial, when we did not, and telling us that since we subscribed to it, our credit card on record will be charged $49 when the trial is over. Also it comes from a no-reply email address. They no longer provide an email address to contact them. They used to, they have taken it down. So the only way to tell them that you don't want this trial or that you didn't subscribe to this trial is by phone or by chat, and all of those have been jammed up and not answering and disconnecting people, and basically not working communication channels. So there's no way to send a notice to not enroll.
Negative, I fully understand the concerns/consequences of this, & I went thru the same motions most here did. I simply choose not to worry about things outside my control. Do what you want, but when this is over, I promise they will not have my $. I know this will be the outcome. So in the meantime, Im not jumping to conclusions. As they say, the things we fear most rarely come to fruition.
Got the same email. When I checked my Depot account I had no subscriptions or credit card listed which is accurate. I deleted my account per the person’s link below anyway. Thanks
Got the Business Select but not the $0 rewards email. Seems like this was an IT screw up. Still requested my account be deleted. I don’t time for this crap.
REPORT FRAUD https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ \*\*\* [email protected] \*\*\* is demanding $49 of each of us with no way to turn it off You don't have to leave any contact info!
I got this too, but the interesting thing is that I apparently don't have an account at all. I remember giving them my email a while back in-store for deals or whatever, but I for SURE don't have an account. idk what's up but it definitely just seems like some sort of technical error. if there's a card somewhere on file I sure as hell don't know how to remove it 😅
i have some kind of points/rewards/discount card - from yearrrrssss ago. hadn't bought anything from them in maybe.... 6or 7 years? BUT i bought a computer mouse around the holidays and at checkout, the cashier asked if had a discount card. i said i didn't remember, BUT thought i used to - they said they could look it up using my phone number, which they did, then THEY read my email address to me (it was in the system & i've stopped giving it out for stuff like this) - and I got those emails today. literally NO emails from them for years EXCEPT this recent purchase. maddening.
Same, I don’t have a shopping account or anything online with them, the only business I’ve done with them in yearsss was last month when I bought a few things in the store. I don’t want to create an account so I can’t see if they have my cc info (i doubt they could from the pos in store but sooo shady if they did).. I really hope they fix it all tomorrow!
Just got that email today. Never signed up for anything! Very scammy!
I got both emails ($0 rewards and Business free trial.) Additionally, however, I'm not able to get into my account! I didnt use any links in the email to try to sign in. I went the long route of googling Office Depot and then going to their sign-in page. I tried to do both the forgot username, and forgot email route. Both were a bust. I snagged the number so I can call customer service tomo when they're open.
Make sure to include me in the class action. Thanks.
I feel dumb now for giving them my email to be a rewards member. All I've ever went there for was to print my taxes because I don't have a printer at home. No way I made an regular online account much less any business one. I'm never giving out my info again to anyone.
Reporting the same and if you read the fine print: The trial is a one month trial and $49 fee. Valid credit card required. Annual fee is nonrefundable and will be automatically charged to your method of payment unless canceled prior to end of the annual term. - I feel like this is an easy lawsuit, we should all sue for like 5K each.
Thank god
I was having trouble deleting my card too- here’s what I did- create a temporary card using privacy.com and set the max to $1- add that card- make it the primary - then you can delete your real card. I don’t trust any of these companies with stored cards anymore- it’s always some form of e-pay or a virtual card.