Just weeks after Target announced that some 40 million credit card numbers were hacked between November 27 and December 15, a Cleveland-area woman filed a federal class action lawsuit against the big box store. Apparently, the company’s goodwill offering of 10% off all purchases for one weekend in December was not enough to soothe the hurt feelings and battered bank account of Michelle Mannion of Amherst.
Hers was among the credit card numbers yanked by hackers who installed malware in Target’s point-of-sale systems. Her bank account was subsequently drained (something most folks are familiar enough with after a stop for “just one or two things” at Target), though her lawyer says they’re still figuring out the grand total.
Via Cleveland.com, the gist of the suit is that Target took their sweet time correcting the situation. Another way to read that: We can’t sue the hackers, so we’ll sue Target.
“The malware was discovered on our point-of-sale systems in our U.S. stores on December 15,” the company said in a prepared release. “At that time, we disabled the malicious code and immediately began notifying our card processors and the payment card networks.
But according to Mannion’s class action lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court, Target didn’t act quickly enough to prevent millions of dollars in losses.
If not for Target’s negligence, the thieves could not have accessed this information and installed the software on Target’s point-of-sale machines, the lawsuit said.
“The credit card information stolen from 40 million accounts has now infiltrated the global black market,” the lawsuit said. “The credit and debit card numbers were selling in batches of 1 million cards for as little as $20 to as high as $100 per card.”
1 million cards for just $20 sounds more like a Wal-Mart deal to us.
Read the lawsuit below.
Target lawsuit (PDF)
Target lawsuit (Text)
This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2014.
A 10 percent “shopping spree” seems like pennies when a customer’s credit rating could be destroyed.
Absolutely ridiculous. Target makes headlines because they are a recognizable brand that everyone knows. Does anyone have any idea how much credit card theft and fraud takes place in the US each year? Probably not, or else you would view this class action law suit as a load of sh*t like I do. Target went public with the compromise. Most organizations don’t… leaving the consumer wondering, “WTF happened?”. Target set an example that other organizations should follow in a time when cyber attacks and fraud are so prevalent.
Let me know how this goes. 😏
I hope she gets something. Target is always acting like Eveyone is trying to take advantage of them every time they return something, and god forbid you use a gift receipt. They always behave as though the customers are planning to scam them, out time they got a taste. They really should have more security in their software for the size of their company.
Im curious to know how much she is asking for and how much the hackers got out of her account since they drained it….. and as a victim of Identity theft myself, I will say once they ruin your credit, it does cost a lot of money to get if fixed… It took me 3 years to get the issues fixed and thousands of dollars…. the credit bureaus do not like to help you and they are very hard to get in touch with, so you end up hiring a company to fix it and it will add up… So if anyones credit got ruined, I do feel their pain. I think credit cards should have pin # too, so if some one does still it, they would have to know the pin to use it….
This happened to me as well. Target has not been helpful at all with this!! The 10% weekend was for all people. They have done nothing for the people actually effected by having their credit cards used and accounts drained.
This is the chance you take when you use a debit or a credit card! It happens. It happens a lot. Hackers have gotten better and it’s impossible to safeguard your account 100%. What if someone hacks into the ATM system? Are you going to sue the bank. Well, good luck with that! They got word out in a timely manner. I was able to close down my Target card immediately. All that is going to happen if this woman wins her suit is that the rest of us are going to be paying for it in increased prices. Dumb. I for one will not join in this class action suit. I have had my bank account drained (not this time) and I know it’s a pain. The bank, however, reimbursed all the money and I was made whole. People are looking for a quick buck an so is her attorney.
I hope she gets MILLIONS and every person that shops at Target gets charged twice the amount for everything they buy in the store! 10% off for a weekend is an obvious ploy to make more sales. Their markup average is greater than 10%. I was shafted by this situation. As a single father and veteran I deserve to be treated better than this! If everyone of us 40 million customers go into our perspective Targets and load up 2 or 3 baskets of merchandise take it to the register and attempt to pay for all the merchandise with the credit cards that have the stolen numbers on them, it will cost them a lot more than “10%” to pay the staff to return the merchandise to the shelves!
Yes… I am pissed! My bank shut down my card because Target “accidentally” allowed my number to be stolen. I have NO access to my money for the next 10 days until I get my new card. The 10% for this weekend is BS because I do not have access to my money. No doubt coordinated that way by Target! I should be able to go into Target to get food to feed my kids, get money to pay for gas in my car, and make sure I am not put out at all!
Guess what fuck tards? money is for spending, plastic is for making the goods we use, get the fuck over yourselves for being lazy morons in the 1st place!
Target has an obligation to safeguard your payment card information and is obligated BY LAW as is everyone else to report the security breach—so they did nothing more than they were required to do, so don’t get warm and fuzzy about their honesty.
I am sure the PCI (payment card industry), i.e. the banks, are making Target suffer right now with higher merchant fees to process cards until they implement a more robust system. For those of you lobbing attacks at people using cards, tell me how it feels when someone steals your cash and you can’t get the bank to replace it??? Plastic is way safer to use, especially credit cards, as the liability is far lower. Either way, it is largely the merchants who don’t spend enough on better data security, and worst of all the banks, who make bazillions of dollars and don’t bother to invest any of them to make cards more difficult to counterfeit. Every bank should have automatically issued replacement cards for everyone shown to have used their card at Target (this is not that difficult to do) and made it possible for people to more easily cancel their cards to prevent fraud. At the very least, it is wise to contact the bank and report your card as stolen if you used it during the breach period.
You guys are also confusing credit card theft with identity theft—stealing bank card info like this will not likely affect your credit unless you don’t report it in time and the bank as a result will not refund your money, which then causes you to be unable to pay other bills. To steal someone’s identity, one must get a lot more info than Target had in this card database…like address, social security number, etc.