TJX Mess Gets Worse

Last March, TJX, which operates more than 2,400 stores under names including TJ Maxx, Marshalls and A.J. Wright, acknowledged that account data for nearly 46 million consumers was stolen.

Fortunately for me, my bank notified me immediately.

The saga of bad practice, assigning blame and denial just gets worse and worse…

“Despite TJX having reported some 46 million consumers impacted by the massive data breach into its computer systems, new documents indicate that as many as 96 million consumers may have been affected, including about 29 million MasterCard victims and 65 million Visa victims, according to documents filed with the federal court in Boston Oct. 23.”
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But the testimony of Visa’s Joseph Majka describes some 96 million impacted account numbers, with fraud occurring in 13 different countries.
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Visa alone had calculated fraud losses at between $68 million and $83 million.

Point is, every time you swipe your credit card at the checkout or at the pump, you have no idea where your data is being stored. Your card issuer (i.e. American Express, Visa, MasterCard) likely has massive data protection schemes in place. But what about the retailer you are doing business with? Who has access to that data? What are they doing to protect your information? These are important concerns for you the consumer.

If you are a business owner/manager, what are you doing to protect your customer’s data? Are you collecting more than you should? How long are you keeping it? Is the data vulnerable to theft?

Related Links:

• TJX Breach More Than Twice As Bad As Reported
• Data breach at TJX affected 94 mln accounts-suit
• Who should store data, stores or credit card co’s?
• More articles about careless organizations that allow data to be stolen…