Taking Time to Address the Target Hack

When I heard about the Target hack I immediately asked my spouse whether he had bought anything there recently as I had not, but I was worried about our debit card safety.  He said yes, he had purchased two inexpensive alarm clocks.  He couldn’t remember the date exactly, so then I had to spend time looking up the bank statements to ascertain whether his purchase fell within the breach period, from November 27 to December 15.  It did not.  I was relieved but worried for the 40 million potential customers who had shopped then. 

The CEO of Target issued a reassuring statement here.  But then, as Bob Sullivan reports here, Target later admitted that it turned out that encrypted PIN information had been stolen.  Even though the information is encrypted, Sullivan recommended that customers change their PIN.  That takes time.  Our community bank’s login page offered to issue Target customers a new debit card immediately and suggested that customers monitor their accounts for fraud.  That too takes time. 

In short, if you were a customer who did shop or thought you may have shopped during that time period, you had to spend some time worrying about potential fraud activity on your account and take precautionary and proactive measures. 

Joseph Siprut of Siprut PC filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the 40 million customers whose accounts were compromised by the breach and talked to CBS in Chicago about it here, explaining the breach of contract theory behind the case and the desire to compensate consumers for their time.