The world came to a stand still on Tuesday for Inauguration Day. Millions lined the National Mall in Washington DC. Tens of millions of viewers across the United States and around the world tuned in to the events on TV. Millions more taxed Internet bandwidth by watching live broadcasts over the Web. The swearing in of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States was the only thing anyone was focused on that day.
Heartland Payment Systems was apparently counting on it. That might explain why they appear to have strategically chosen Inauguration Day to announce that their network had been compromised and that potentially hundreds of millions of credit card numbers have been breached. The media have jumped all over it and it has been quickly dubbed as the new "Biggest Data Breach in History"- besting the TJX Data Breach. But, is the situation critical or is this all sensationalist hype? What should Heartland Payment Systems, or their customers, or the consumers who might be affected do to respond to this news? You can learn more about the breach and some answers to these questions by reading Heartland Systems Data Breach: Crisis or Hype?
Chimicles & Tikellis is investigating a potential class action lawsuit against Heartland Payment Systems (“HPS”). HPS, a publicly traded company, processes credit card transactions and provides other services for over 250,000 businesses across the country, including restaurants and small retail stores. HPS reportedly handles approximately 100 million credit card transactions per month.
HPS recently announced that certain data that it maintains in its processing systems had been accessed by outside hackers in 2008. It has been reported that this compromised information includes debit and credit card numbers, expiration dates, and internal bank codes. According to reports, HPS only became aware of the breach after it was notified of patterns of fraudulent credit card activity by Visa and MasterCard. The incident has already been described as the largest credit card data breach ever.
If you credit card or debit card was recently replaced/re-issued by the issuer or if you have reason to believe that your credit card, debit card, or other sensitive personal information may have been compromised as a result of the recent data breach at HPS, please contact the attorneys below.
Attorneys to Contact:
Joseph G. Sauder (JosephSauder@chimicles.com)
Benjamin F. Johns (BFJ@chimicles.com)
Matthew D. Schelkopf (MatthewSchelkopf@chimicles.com)
361 West Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA 19041 Phone: 610-642-8500