Friday, January 19, 2007

Check please...

Ever buy anything from a T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods or A.J. Wright store using a credit card in the last 9 months or so? Expect a call from your credit card company telling you that you are getting a new card with a new number.


T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods and A.J. Wright stores are all owned by TJX Companies Inc. which may have stored more customer data than necessary, putting possibly millions of customers at risk for ID theft, according to some in the banking industry. The beef is that they stored your credit card number and name long after the transactions were verified, unencrypted, and then someone stole their data. Does that sound like a problem to you?

So now I have the golden opportunity to inform ALL the places that I use my main credit card for automated payments that they need to use a different number. If I forget any, I'm sure they will stop providing whatever service they provide and probably hit me with a non-payment penalty. That's what they do when the expiration date rolls over and they fail to contact me for the new information. What fun.

Nice work TJX. I hope people do the right thing and punish the shittake mushrooms out out your company by NOT SHOPPING THERE.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

If you think that any other vendor you shop at is doing things differently than TJX, then you are likely to be disappointed by the (I predict) steady stream of these sorts of announcement over the next 2 years.

Anonymous said...

Crap. I like TJ Maxx. I guess this means I should start carrying cash for a change.

Anonymous said...

AAARG, I've only gone to Marshall's once in the last 5 or 6 years and that was a few weeks ago. I also got a letter from my credit union saying my card is being reissued. I'm joining The Compact! (at least unofficially)