CLEVELAND – Target is sounding the alarm again and we’re on your side with what you need to know to keep your personal information safe.
We’ve learned the retailer’s recent data breach was even bigger than originally believed.
Target said today that hackers accessed information belonging to up to 70 million customers — including names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. It said this is separate from the credit and debit card data stolen, but it’s all part of the same breach.
You’ll recall target had initially said there were 40 million people that had their credit and debit card info taken in the weeks following Thanksgiving. Now there’s more on that total.
Cassandra Zavodny from Strongsville checks her banking every day. She said on Dec. 18 fraudulent charges were added at a Circle K in her name. The store’s manager asked if she had shopped at Target recently. She had, in fact, four times using her PNC debit/credit card. Her bank wrote her a letter saying that they had “acted immediately to step up monitoring of credit and debit transactions.”
She got a new card, but with today’s announcement about more info being hacked with people’s names, addresses and emails through Target’s security breach, we asked, how does she feel now?
“Not safe at all. I just don’t feel safe,” she told us.
Ram Mayekar from Apprisen, which is a company that helps with credit counseling, told us this is a serious situation. He said the additional personal information makes it easier for the bad guys to establish new fraudulent accounts in your name.
You should look closely at your statements as often as you can and don’t overlook small charges, he added. “A perpetrator is going to make small transaction charges on your statements or on your credit cards just to make sure that the actual credit card is working,” he explained.
Changing your pins and passwords is a good idea. And contact your credit agencies to put on a fraud alert to your accounts.
“There (are) two fraud alerts,” said Mayekar. “There’s an initial fraud alert that’s going to last 90 days. And then there’s an extended fraud alert that will last 7 years,” he added.
Target said it will offer one year of credit monitoring and identity theft protection to those who shopped at their stores. When we asked the company if that means everyone who’s shopped at its stores or just those who shopped during the security breach time frame, Target reps said more specific info will be given next week.
For now, the whole situation makes Zavodny feel not necessarily angry, but upset. “I’m more sad than angry. When you don’t have a lot and then that’s taken from you,” she added.
Target said if it has your email address, it will attempt to contact you about additional ways to avoid consumer scams. It does say if someone claiming to be from Target gets ahold of you, the company will never ask for personal information, so don’t give that out.