Shocker, TJX Credit Card Breach Settlement Proposal Lacks Any Real Settlement

from the oops-we're-real-sorry dept

TJX, the parent corporation of retailer TJ Maxx,proposed a settlement to the class action suits leveed against it in what could be largest credit card breach ever, approximately 45 million records. TJX is offering claimants up to three years of credit monitoring along with $20,000 identity theft insurance coverage. This settlement sounds pretty good, until you read the fine print (via Consumerist). In order to qualify for the settlement, you must have returned an item to the store without a receipt; this limits the claimants to approximately 455,000 people, or only about 1% of class. The remaining 44.5 million are only eligible for $30 vouchers in store credit, and only with documented proof of a loss. This definitely seems like a slap on the wrist for TJX. Sure, it's bad, but surely TJX hasn't lost 77% of its customer base from this incident. Finally, in a clever move at the end of the settlement proposal, TJX took this as an opportunity to announce that all of its stores will be having a 15% sale sometime in 2008. Way to turn a class action lawsuit settlement into free advertising, TJ Maxx.

Filed Under: lawsuits, security
Companies: tj maxx, tjx

More People Busted With Credit-Card Numbers From TJX Breach

from the cha-ching dept

The Secret Service has busted four people in Florida, and recovered 200,000 credit cards from the TJX breach that was disclosed earlier this year. Recovering the credit-card numbers at this point does little more than link the fraudsters to the breach, but they're said to have been used to rack up more than $75 million in fraudulent charges. The people busted here didn't apparently participate in the theft of the credit-card data, but bought them from "known cybercriminals in Eastern Europe" and then used the numbers to make counterfeit cards. In any case, they're way more productive than another group of Florida scammers busted back in March, who only managed to rack up $8 million worth of goods at Sam's and Wal-Mart. Since banks get left holding the bag for this type of fraud, expect more lawsuits as they look to recover their losses from TJX's astounding level of incompetence.

Filed Under: breach, credit card, security
Companies: tj maxx, tjx