Just a couple of weeks after revealing that their system was hacked and over 40 million debit and credit accounts were affected, Target is admitting to yet another glitch.
The country's second largest retailer reports that some of the gift cards sold over the holidays may not have been properly activated. A Target chain in Minneapolis says that the affected cards were less than 0.1% of the total cards sold to customers and the store says they will honor and replace faulty cards. While the percentage may seem to be small, it entails a sizable number of cards, with over 40,000 gift cards that could be left affected throughout the US.
The retail company's spokeswoman Molly Snyder stated in an email to The Associated Press: "We are aware that some Target gift cards were not fully activated and apologize for the inconvenience." Brian Sozzi, who was the CEO of Belus Capital Advisors criticizes, "It's another black eye that makes you question the internal operating procedures of Target. Target needs to be doing everything perfectly. It can't afford to lose any more confidence among its guests."
It couldn't have come at a worse time, with shoppers experiencing the holidays. Between the days of November 27 and December 15, the data breach caused encrypted PINs to be stolen. The store however says that the encryptions are more than effective enough to reduce the risks of thieves successfully using someone else's money for their self interest.
While this may be so, there were more pieces of information stolen, apart from the encrypted pins. Customer names, credit and debit card expiration dates, credit and debit card numbers as well as the embedded code found on the magnetic strips of cards.
Various stories of customers believing that they were affected by the breach later on surfaced throughout the weeks that came. One claims that he was contacted by his credit card company reporting that there were two attempts to cash in $8,000 and $3,000 on two separate occasions in different casinos in the West Coast.
Until now, the investigation hasn't yielded any concrete results.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
