Target Sued Over Credit Card Breach, Customers Infuriated

Target customers around the country are infuriated and have no problems expressing their disdain. One customer has even made expeditious strides to take legal action.

Yesterday, amid the retailer’s announcement of a massive credit card breach, Target was also hit with a lawsuit. For those who missed it, Target announced that a breach may have compromised the credit and debit card data of approximately 40 million customers around the country, if not more.

According to TIME Magazine, the lawsuit was filed in a San Francisco federal court, just hours after the retailer’s confirmation. California resident, Jennifer Kirk, initially filed the lawsuit. However, she intends to push the lawsuit forward as a class action suit in an effort to represent others who have been affected as a result of the breach, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports.

“Target failed to implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices appropriate to the nature and scope of the information compromised in the data breach,” the complaint reads.

Although the massive credit card breach is the dominant issue, there’s actually more to it, and the legalities are only going to get worse with time. While some catastrophic downturns are inevitable, there are instances when massive destruction can be diverted, and that is the crux of the problem where the domestic retailer is concerned. One public relations error could have possibly shielded hundreds, evens thousands, of customers from suffering the blunt of the breach, which is the main reason for the uproar.

Associated Press reports that many customers feel the second-largest discounter withheld confirmation of the breach due to the holiday peak season, in an effort to avoid an abrupt down-turn in sales. The other problematic issue is Targets’ public relations department and their announcement of the breach. Based on how the information was relayed to customers, it appeared as though Target had belittled the entire situation, by not confirming whether card purchases were now safe. The retailer also did not state the severity of the problem, avoiding the magnitude of the breach.

The Target press release on the site entitled, “Important Notice: unauthorized access to payment card data in U.S. stores,” clearly states the nature of the problem. However, the burning questions most customers seek answers for are at the bottom of the page, with brief, evasive answers that offer no definitive explanations, given the severity of the problem. The breach, which is now classified as the second largest in United States history, didn’t seem to receive the priority most customers felt it should have.

Then, there’s the contradictory statements that have alarms going off for most customers. The retailer initially stated that the breach dates were between November 27 and December 6. Now, they’re retracting that statement, indicating that the last day of the breach was December 15. Most feel that Target cannot provide a lucid answer, because they don’t necessarily have one, which leads customers to believe that November 27 may not have been the beginning.

One customer, Christopher Browning, stated that he experienced credit card fraud just earlier this week. Browning believes the incident may have derived from his a purchase he made at Target on Black Friday. Browning said that two charges in the amounts of $3,000 and $8,000 were attempted with the card he used at Target. Both attempts were made at casinos, but were denied. Browning immediately cancelled the card and now insists on using cash.

”I won’t shop at Target again until the people behind this theft are caught or the reasons for the breach are identified and fixed,” he said. While Browning, didn’t state he’d never shop at Target again, others have stated that they are done. Customers have taken to the retailer’s Facebook page to state their disapproval over the store’s security measures.

Target has yet to provide any comment on the impending lawsuit.