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IDENTITY THEFT INFO > LEARN the Truth > OOPS! Your information is (not) safe with us

OOPS! Your information is (not) safe with us

Every day, your personal information is used by someone, somewhere, for something.  Most of these uses are perfectly legitimate and legal.

Most companies vow to keep your personal information safe and secure. But what happens when a company you’ve done “business” with, such as a retailer, a grocery store, a magazine publisher, your Internet, phone, or cable service provider, (oops!) loses your personal information?

It happens more than you might think.

OOPS #1:   The theft of millions of customers’ credit card information from a major discount retailer continues to wreak havoc on the retailing giant.   The retailer reported that in 2007 more than 45 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen from its IT systems over an 18-month period. It’s considered to be the largest customer data breach on record. Read more here

OOPS #2:  An "unauthorized individual" infiltrated the computer network of a third-party payment processor and may have stolen up to 40 million credit card numbers. All brands of credit cards were exposed in the attack, including 14 million MasterCard accounts, the firm said. Read more here

OOPS #3:  A major discount warehouse club experienced a security breach that exposed credit card data belonging to an unspecified number of customers who purchased gas at the wholesaler’s stations.  In a brief statement, the company said it was alerted to the problem by credit card issuers who reported that customers were complaining of fraudulent charges on their statements. Read more here

OOPS #4: A security breach at an East Coast supermarket chain exposed more than 4 million card numbers and led to 1,800 cases of fraud, the chain announced.  Credit and debit card numbers were stolen during the card authorization process and about 4.2 million unique card numbers were exposed, placing the case among the largest data breaches ever. Read more here

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