Targeted on Christmas Eve
December 24, 2013It’s Christmas Eve, and not a creature is stirring, except the thieves who stole credit card information from Target – they are probably busy doing some last minute Christmas shopping with YOUR credit card information. If you shopped at Target between November 27 and December 15, you could be one of the estimated 40 million credit and debit card accounts that may have been exposed to this breach. (Only in-store purchases are at risk, so if you bought something online from Target over the past several weeks you were not impacted.)
Unlike their slogan “Expect more. Pay less,” you should be paying MORE attention to your credit card statements over the next few months to monitor your bills for any suspicious activity. Target isn’t the only store to be targeted by these thieves. T. J. Maxx stores and Sony have also been hacked over the past few years with similar data breaches.
So what should you do if you see something suspicious on your credit card bill? Immediately report the activity to your credit card company. They will then typically close the affected card number and issue you a new card, in addition to reversing the transaction on your statement.
I actually had this happen myself a few years back when a thief somehow got my Visa card information and went on a shopping spree at Dillard’s department store in Texas. Visa flagged the transaction even before I noticed it and closed off my card to any new purchases. I figured this out when I went to fill up my car at the gas station and my card got rejected. When I called to see what the problem was, they told me about the suspicious purchase made out-of-state that didn’t fit my typical spending habits. I was impressed how quickly Visa had taken action to shut off my card, but I was also a bit embarrassed by the way the cashier handed back my card and said my purchase was declined!
With Christmas shopping now behind you, it is a good idea to review your credit report for any fraudulent activity, even if you didn’t shop at Target. You can get a FREE copy of your credit report at www.annualcreditreport.com once a year from each of the three credit bureaus. You can also get free credit monitoring on sites like Credit Karma and Credit Sesame.