Bob's Discount Furniture offline; chain blames 'unforeseen technical difficulties'

Customers of Bob's Discount Furniture are confused and concerned after the chain's website and phone lines went down and some deliveries have been delayed.

The Troubleshooters called every Bob's Discount Furniture phone number we could find on Friday morning and every number we tried either said "out of service" or "call could not be completed."

It took our team going to a store location and emailing the chain's media team to get some answers about a social media post that blamed "unforeseen technical difficulties."

Bob's Discount Furniture operates 180 stores in 24 states.

"Bob's is currently experiencing a network disruption that has affected our operations, including our website and our ability to interact with customers," customer Celeste Costante read to us from the email she received. "As a result, your delivery... needs to be rescheduled."

She owns and runs a personal delivery service called Shopping by the Shore in South Jersey.

Costante said a couch she ordered from Bob's Discount Furniture arrived, but the end tables were supposed to be delivered Friday.

She saw a post about a problem on Bob's Discount Furniture's Instagram account Thursday, and then got an email Friday with the bad news.

"We will reach out to confirm your new delivery date as soon as possible," she said.

The website for Bob's Discount Furniture reads "scheduled maintenance in progress" but the retailer confirms with the Troubleshooters it "has experienced a network disruption that is affecting certain operations, including our website. All Bob's stores are open as usual and accepting orders, and we are in the process of rescheduling impacted customer deliveries."

It's still unclear if Bob's Discount Furniture was hacked.

"To me, it's the telltale sign of a ransomware attack, right? Because we see the extent of systems that are offline," said cybersecurity expert Rob D'Ovidio with Drexel University.

"That said, it could be some technical glitch we don't know about," he added.

D'Ovidio also said whatever the source of the outage turns out to be, there's reason for consumers to be potentially concerned.

"Because everyone in the back of their mind is thinking, 'Are my data being compromised? I'm a customer here. I've just given over my credit card information, my phone number, my address,'" he said.

Costante said she is concerned about her information and then end tables she ordered.

"I'm hoping it's a quick fix, and that the stuff that I ordered and paid for actually will come," she added.

As soon as the Troubleshooters get more information from Bob's Discount Furniture, we will pass it along to you.

But at this point, whether you're a Bob's Discount Furniture customer or not - and whether this is a breach or not - we should all assume our information has been compromised.

It's a good idea to put a fraud alert on your credit file or to freeze your credit. It is free to do both.