U.S. Cardholder Data Lost in New Scare
Personal information on 650,000 customers of J.C Penney and up to 100 other large U.S retailers could be compromised after a data tape was lost.
GE Money, which handles credit card processing for J.C. Penney and other U.S. retailers, said January 17 that the missing information includes Social Security numbers for 150,000 people. The information was on a backup tape that was discovered to be missing in October 2007. It was being held at a warehouse owned by Iron Mountain, a data storage company, and was never checked out of the warehouse. Yet the tape can't be found, according to GE Money spokesperson Richard Jones. Jones told Associated Press (AP) that there was "no indication of theft," and no evidence of fraudulent activity on the accounts involved. Iron Mountain spokesman Dan O'Neill said the firm regretted losing the tape, "but because of the volume of information we handle and the fact that people are involved, we have occasionally made mistakes." J.C. Penney told AP it had been informed of the situation and referred further inquiries to GE Money. Jones did not identify the other retailers whose customers' information is missing. GE Money is paying for 12 months of credit-monitoring service for customers whose Social Security numbers were on the tape. It took GE Money two months to rebuild the data held on the missing tape and identify the people whose information was lost. Since December 2007, it has been notifying cardholders and telling them to phone a special call center about the missing tape. Related Links
www.gemoney.com/
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