This morning, I awoke to a nasty takeover of my entire website. Who would do such a thing, you ask? My answer is the theme provider tagDiv.
I bought their Newspaper Theme in February of 2019, and have the license key to prove it.
This morning, my entire website was hijacked by them due to a “miscommunication error with Envato API” which caused “this incident as the theme’s automated system verifies your license key with the API and fails to authenticate it.”
Instead of maybe warning someone something is wrong on the backend of their site, TagDiv took my site over with this:
No matter what page you tried to get to on my site, this is what was there. For how long, I don’t even know as it seemed to happen during the night for me.
I had to unregister my theme, find my license key, re-register my theme, and clear the cache to fix it. An annoyance that should not have happened.
I apologize if you were coming here to read my latest chapter and got this notice instead. I assure you, I am not a thief of themes, and have never pirated anything in my life.
Thanks a lot, @TagDiv. I think a theme change might be in order.
UGH .. sounds shady!!!
It felt pretty shady, let me tell you.
Reminds me of that Instagram reel where the little dog runs around while the music sings “Time to do some sketchy shit … Dooda Dooda … hope I get away with it” hmmmm
LOL It was so frustrating.
UGH!! Change is definitely in order.
Right on, Jess. I have switched over to an older theme I had on hand. So far, I haven’t found one I totally like well enough to switch it again.
That is beyond annoying. I paid for a theme and don’t even remember the license key. If you asked for it, I couldn’t find it. I have a genius guy in Britain who does all my stuff for me so I would call him. I’m mightily impressed you fixed this.
Oh, yes, it sure is. I actually had to think where the license key was. I was so panicked, I was literally giving myself a firm “calm yourself down” talk so I could take care of the issue. lol Anyway, the purchase date and license key were in a text document in one of the theme folders.
You are an organized person, Kymber!
But you are the queen. 😀 👑
Well on the up side I ran antivirus on each of my desktops drive for two days …. I ‘fess I keep up with my shows on some grey-ish sites, so I honestly thought something had snuck past all the antivirus, ad blocker, malware detector software I run. (blush)
While I’m glad I didn’t pickup a virus, I’m not happy that you had to deal with that. Are they taking measures to prevent a repeat occurrence?
Thanks so much, mama dragon. I hear you about the antivirus.
They put out a statement saying they removed the offensive picture so that this can’t occur again. I still changed themes because I’m still a bit leery over it.
So sorry that happened. You were a champ to investigate and fix it! Very smart!
Thank you, Cathy. I’m glad you think so. I was sure panicked, and had to force myself to calm down so I could figure it out. lol
My heart goes out to you. The story is sadly commonplace, with faulty plug-ins, themes etc. People marketing products whose automatons, cause chaos on our sites, whilst the marketers sleep peacefully at night. You can’t kiss this experience better with a band-aid, but do accept that ‘this too will pass and the best is yet to come.’ Blessings, Peter.
Thank you, Peter. Chaos is right. This has caused serious problems for a lot of people. Blessings to you, too.
Sorry to learn this….hope it is resolved to your satisfaction
Thank you so much. I had a few rough days, but it’s all coming together, I think. 🙂
I know this will cause you some sleepless nights and a lot of stress while you sort this out. Which also means a lot of days where I won’t be hearing from you as well, while you work and code. Many lonely days ahead for me…sigh. I’m with you – loss of trust for sure! Raymond is right, pain in the arse! And extra hugs to add to the ones from Audrey and Liese…OH! Group hug!
Thanks, Bee. Sleepless nights is right. There are people on the support forums asking for compensation and they have deleted some of those, while ignoring the others. It’s still a mess for some people.
Thanks for the hugs. I sure need ’em right now. 💕
It seems wrong to like your post. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this. Glad you got it worked out. * hugs*
Thanks, Audrey. Sending hugs right back to you. It’s been a long few days there, sorting it all out. Every time I look at my site, I see something I need to fix because it’s a different theme.
Defamation of character. But do they care? So sorry you went through this, Kymber. Needless pain in the arse. Hugs 💕🙂
I think what bothers me the most is that they put this hidden hi-jack feature into their theme at all. You should see the hundreds of complaints on their forums right now.
I used their special tagDiv page builder to create this site, so other themes are not going to support it. I don’t relish finding another theme and starting over, but how can I trust them now?
Thanks so much for the hugs. xoxo
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What a mess is this. I’m very sorry, that happened to your site.
I hope, you will get it back to normal soon, but the damage is done.
Hugs to you Kymber, otherwise I’m with Raymond.
Thank you so much. I just can’t believe they would allow paying customers to look like thieves. I’m with Raymond, too. 😀 (And hugs back! xoxo)
What a pain in the arse …
You got that right!