Total failure in Wildberries: what was it and what will happen next

Irina Mishina

Lately, Wildberry crash reports have been reminiscent of military reports. A lot has been restored in the online store in a week, almost everything, except for financial transactions and the return of customers' money.

From messages on Vbanke.info.

“WILDBERRIES, we didn’t pick up an item yesterday, because that just didn’t fit. In general, the program did not “see” the item at all.

- “There was a double write-off of funds. For the second time. How to solve a problem???".

- “When will the hotline be opened??? You can only ignore the appeals!

- “I ordered on March 15 (payment after receipt), the write-off occurred. No goods arrived at the point of issue, they are not in deliveries. Now they are displayed in my purchases, as already received and paid. But I didn't see them. And in the database at the point of issue by article, they are not in my history of issue and return. They only said to make an appeal to the LK (Personal account)”.

- “They sent me a product for 5 thousand, instead of the goods I ordered for 14 thousand, and it is simply unrealistic to issue a return request. The courier immediately ran away, threw the box and everything, they didn’t even have time to check. The horror is simple, I went to the point of issue - they don’t accept, they say, wait until the server starts working. Is this my problem???

The editors of "NI" tried to go through all the hardships of buyers. We tried to return the purchased product, but at the time of publication there was no refund. After an appeal through a personal account, a meaningless unsubscribe came, after which the "Appeals" section became unavailable for sending messages.

Even conspiracy theories appeared on the networks.

Maxim Novikovsky: “The usual force majeure divorce. No one will return the money".

We decided to ask how things are in the regions.

A resident of the Volgograd region, according to the Notebook publication , on March 10 ordered shoes worth about 3 thousand rubles through the Wildberries website. “A few days ago, the site crashed, and all purchase data in your account was reset to zero. I called the hotline, where they first informed me that my purchase had been delivered to the Kirovsky district of Volgograd, despite the fact that I live in the Dzerzhinsky district. After the restoration of the site in the personal account, the previous purchases were preserved, and the order of shoes was reset to zero, ”the woman said, complaining that the WB hotline could not be reached.

Ufanotes.ru also reports a problem with the website and the Wildberries mobile app, citing Primpres. Customers claim that so far "it is not possible to verify the refund for the returned goods." The company responds that this is impossible "until the site is fully restored".

Some Russians fear that there will be unauthorized debits from their cards. In this regard, experts advised to withdraw all funds from the card linked to the personal account. However, according to social media reports, people have so far "unsuccessfully tried to remove the cards linked to the account." The company does not explain this issue in any way.

There are also customers who complain that “all products that were in favorites disappeared” and that the number of purchases was reset to zero: “it says “Zero purchases for all time”. The "Favorites" section is also empty, and is being updated with products that have never been there.

The authorities of Kazakhstan intervened in the situation. “There was a failure in the application of this store, or they were hacked, but people are charged money from the card just like that, and deliveries are gone. How should Kazakhstanis act in this situation?” - such a question was asked to Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Trade Bakhyt Sultanov by journalists, InBusiness.kz reports. According to the official, the government contacted Wildberries, and they "promised that" this failure will be resolved.

NI contacted Rospotrebnadzor, but they never responded to our request. However, the regional branches of this structure provide some explanations. What actions are best taken by consumers in the event of a failure, Margarita Rykunova, head of the Consumer Protection Department of the Rospotrebnadzor Office for the Voronezh Region, advised. “First of all, you need to contact Wildberries support. If this does not work, then you need to remember that the seller of the goods is another legal entity or individual entrepreneur. You need to contact him. If it doesn’t work, only a trial remains, ”Vesti-Voronezh, a representative of Rospotrebnadzor, is quoted as saying.

NI decided to contact Wildberries with a request, but there was no response within a week. Then the editors turned to the press service of the Ministry of Economic Development with a request to clarify the situation. Only after that our press secretary Valery Prokopyev answered our questions. Here is his answer in full.

“ On March 14, technical problems were noted in the work of our online store. On the same day, our IT specialists restored most of the functionality, and by March 21, the number of errors had already decreased by 120 times. At the moment, the main functionality of the site and mobile applications is working, customers can receive their orders both at self-delivery points and from couriers. All orders will be delivered. If something did not fit or did not like, you can issue a return, the money will go to the buyer's account. For the convenience of our customers, we have extended the period for the return of goods of good quality through the points of issue or courier service, automatically increased the period of storage of goods in the pickup point. Errors that occurred when linking or deleting customer bank cards were completely fixed. All personal and financial information, including bank card data, is completely safe and unaffected. Our staff is currently working on fixing the remaining bugs that may cause some sections to malfunction - for example, the purchase history is not displayed. Returns for goods are made in full, but notifications of returns may be delayed ,” the Wildberries press service told us and asked on behalf of the company to apologize to customers.

Now there are many versions about the cause of the failure. “According to information from several of our sources at once, the Wildberries website was hacked by a foreign group of OldGremlin hackers, who not only disrupted the site, but also seized control of it”, - the editor-in-chief of the SecurityLab.ru information portal, an international company specializing in the development of solutions in the field of information security Alexander Antipov said. According to him, hackers from OldGremlin placed an encryption virus in the site data, which caused a large-scale failure in the work of Wildberries. Another version was presented by Samat Galimov, the author of the Launch Tomorrow Telegram channel , a former technical director of the online publication: “ Russian hackers hacked Wildberries and destroyed almost the entire infrastructure, including backups (backup copies),” he wrote. Samat Galimov suggests that Wildberries employees participated in the hack: “Because, judging by the stories, in general, they thought about security there. I wonder if the hackers will ask for a ransom or if this is a political action .”

We asked the Wildberries press service to comment on these messages. Here is the version of what happened, the press secretary of the company Valery Prokopiev:

“The main reason is multiple errors in the operation of some services. We are currently conducting an internal investigation involving external IT consultants. All goods are delivered, but delivery information may temporarily not be displayed in personal accounts - orders can be received both by code and by passport. The error in displaying orders in personal accounts has already been fixed for 99% of users in Russia”.

Those who cannot receive a response to their complaint to the online store via e-mail or personal account can contact the official Telegram news channel for Wildberries buyers: https://t.me/wildberriesofficialcustomer.