While shoppers may believe that the merchandise on the shelves of their local TJMaxx, Marshalls, or other off-price store consists of castoffs from department stores, there simply isn’t enough of that kind of merchandise to keep every store filled. Instead, off-price retailers fill their racks with items that come directly from factories, and some of those factories have been linked to terrible labor practices. [More]
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Your Great Finds From TJMaxx May Come From Underpaid Workers Right Here In The U.S.
How Do Some Retailers Succeed While Ignoring The Internet?
Shopping online: it’s convenient for customers and brings in big bucks for retailers. But not everyone is jumping at the chance to sell their goods on the internet. HomeGoods and Marshall’s don’t have websites filled with products and TJMaxx has a sparsely filled online platform, and they appear to be doing just fine, thank you very much. [More]
Why Are Home Depot & TJ Maxx Bringing In Customers Other Retailers Can’t?
With retailers like Macy’s, Kmart, Sears, and others closing dozens of stores year after year in a bid to boost their bottom line in the face of sluggish sales, you might think the retail world as a whole is struggling. While a number of big names have indeed seen better day, a few companies are bucking that trend. [More]
Computer Hacking ID Thief Gets 20-Year Prison Term
A federal court in Boston has sentenced Albert Gonzalez, the Miami computer hacker behind millions of dollars in credit card theft from national retailers like TJ Maxx, BJs, Barnes & Noble and more, to 20 years in prison for his crimes. [More]
TJX Hacker May Have Also Been Working For The Secret Service For $75,000 A Year
Albert Gonzalez, the mastermind behind most of the multi-million dollar credit card breaches in the past few years, is being sentenced this week. (Feds are asking for 25 years.) Now his former accomplice, Stephen Watt, has told Wired that while Gonzalez was busy stealing and selling credit card data he was also being paid under the table by the U.S. Secret Service to inform on others, earning as much as $75,000 in cash annually. [More]
Sorry About That Data Breach, Here's 15% Off!
As an apology to the millions of consumers who had their credit card info stolen, TJX (that’s T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, and A.J. Wright) is offering fifteen percent off all purchases in stores today only. We suggest that you pay with cash.
Forever 21 Aftershocks? Citibank Cancels Cards Due To Retailer Security Breach
We’ve received queries from readers telling us that their Citibank cards have been replaced, and asking whether we’ve heard about any new security breach. Other than Forever 21 we haven’t, so we’re wondering whether they’re responsible for the stories below.
Former Employee Says TJX Security In Lawrence, Kansas Is A Joke
Remember TJX’s gigantic security breach problems last year, where data on 94 million accounts was stolen? Good for you, because apparently TJX doesn’t. A former employee of a TJX store in Lawrence, Kansas was fired recently for posting anonymous complaints online about the current sorry state of his store’s security, which included the store manager writing server login and password information on a sticky note, and the store resetting employee passwords to blank fields.
TJX To Pay Up To 40.9 Million For Data Breach
TJX will be paying as much as 40.9 million in a settlement with Visa and the bank that processes their credit card payments , says the Associated Press.
The funds will be used to help U.S. credit card issuers such as banks recover costs related to the breach, which may have exposed more than 100 million cards to potential fraud, TJX said.
National Retail Federation: Credit Card Companies Don't Care About Data Security
Last Sunday’s 60 minutes had a report by Lesley Stahl about the now-infamous TJX data breach.
TJX Proposes One-Day Sale As Part Of Class Action Settlement
When TJX revealed earlier this year that they’d failed to keep safe over 45 million customer credit card accounts, they were hit with both consumer and bank class action lawsuits. Now they’ve submitted a proposed settlement for the consumer class action suit that includes a strange, somewhat insulting offer: a “one-day sale” for victims of the theft. Attorneys general from eight states have filed an objection against the proposal, citing that even if it’s a well-intentioned goodwill gesture, it doesn’t belong as part of any official, legal settlement, which should be designed to benefit the victims rather than the retailer.
Other Stores May Be Just As Vulnurable To Hacking As TJ Maxx
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the most likely scenario for how the hackers stole an estimated 200 million card numbers is as simple as a person with a laptop breaking into the wifi network of a store:
The biggest known theft of credit-card numbers in history began two summers ago outside a Marshalls discount clothing store near St. Paul, Minn.
Bankers Join The Class Action Fun Against TJX
TJX, the parent company of TJ Maxx and Marshall’s, is facing a class action lawsuit from the 45 million customers whose credit card data they lost; now, bankers associations representing 300 banks in Maine, Connecticut and Massachusetts have decided to file a class action suit of their own. From InfoWorld:
Banks — especially in states like Massachusetts — were also hard hit. Why? Because under current federal law, its banks, not merchants, who have to pay to make customers whole again: forgiving fraudulent purchases on credit and debit cards and, of course, cancelling compromised cards and bank accounts, then issuing new ones to their customers. Needless to say, that’s an expensive process, especially when you’ve got to repeat it 45 million times, as banks across the country will have to do in the wake of TJX. Not surprise, then, that banks aren’t taking this sitting down.
Banks are in the process of notifying consumers, some who did not think they were affected, that they will soon receive new debit and credit cards in the mail. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER