Recently in the beauty world, the independent make up brand Lime Crime is under serious fire and is quickly losing the support of many people. Not only are a vast majority of people that were once users and fans boycotting, but some online blogs have set up a petition to kick Lime Crime out of the next upcoming International Makeup Artist Trade Show, which is to be held in New York April 10-12.
Lime Crime has a dark past that has been hidden from the majority of consumers. However, the big incident that has led to Lime Crime’s mainstream bashing was caused by a security breach that happened in mid-February.
Anyone who bought Lime Crime products directly from their website in-between Oct. 4, 2014 and Feb. 15, 2015 have had their personal information stolen. Names, addresses, card account numbers, expiration dates, security codes and Lime Crime website usernames and passwords were accessed and stolen by hackers.
Concerned consumers had been attempting to contact Lime Crime for months prior to the breach that their checkout system has had security flaws. People have been publically commenting on Lime Crime’s Facebook page, alleging that the company knew about the problem for months. Others argued that the company was using an expired SSL certificate, which is what is used to secure credit card transactions. Since fall, customers have been noticing that their credit card information has been stolen after using Lime Crime’s website, but have received no response or action.
Secondly, Lime Crime treated the breach as if it were not a big deal until enough people complained about the thousands of dollars being stolen from their bank accounts. When Lime Crime finally released a statement about their website being hacked, they did not send out an official email to all of their customers. Rather, they only posted about the hack through social media.
Any comments on Lime Crime’s social media from customers about being affected by the hack were deleted and the users were then blocked. In some cases before the situation really blew up, Lime Crime’s CEO, Xenia Vorotova, otherwise known as “Doe Deere,” verbally attacked customers if they said anything remotely negative about the brand.
After Lime Crime announced the hack, they shut down their website temporarily to what the website states as “to investigate what happened.” During this time, people media began to speak out about the company. Not long after, people caught on and one by one, beauty-world figures and normal consumers alike began doing research on Lime Crime and its CEO’s past, most being disgusted by what was found.
I personally encourage people to search the hashtag “boycottlimecrime” on any social media and read the stories and controversy behind this brand.