Stores neglect to inform customers of credit card breach

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August 12th, 2008 - Posted by Caitlin

Last week, federal prosecutors revealed that an international ring of hackers had stolen more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers from nine different retailers. Apparently, many of those retailers failed to inform their customers about the breaches, despite laws requiring them to do so. More than 40 states legally require companies to disclose any data breaches, either via letters to the consumers whose data may have been impacted, or through press releases to the media and announcements on company websites. Yet many embarrassed companies neglect to make these announcements.

TJX Companies, whose stores include Marshall's and TJ Maxx, as well as BJ's Wholesale Club, DSW and Dave and Buster's informed customers about the data breach shortly after it was discovered. But Bosten Market and Forever 21 did not. Office Max, Barnes and Noble and Sports Authority refused to say whether they made customer disclosures or not, but it does not appear that they did so.

OfficeMax and Barnes and Noble denied having any knowledge of the breach. Forever 21 and Boston Market claimed that despite being warned by federal authorities, their own private investigations did not confirm that there had been a breach.

When stores don't even bother telling you that your credit card information has been compromised, the only real protection against identity theft is a service such as LifeLock or Identity Guard, which set fraud alerts on your credit file and monitor any changes to your credit in order to prevent and detect identity theft. For more information about these and other services, see our identity theft protection service reviews and comparison.