Feb 23, 2009 11:19 pm US/Eastern
Local Bank Recalls 4,300 Debit Cards After Breach
MARLBORO (WBZ) ―
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St. Mary's Credit Union
WBZ
A credit union in Marlboro is recalling the debit cards of 4,300 customers because of a security breach.
St. Mary's Credit Union said Monday 24 customers have reported unauthorized transactions since January. "It was a bigger deal to the extent that we were notified that potentially 4,300 members of our credit union could have been victims of the breach," said Anthony Battista of St. Mary's Credit Union.
Joe, a retired construction manager from Ashland, told WBZ he lost $1,000 because of the breach. "You feel like your life has been violated by not having secure information out there."
As a result, the credit union is spending $20,000 to replace all of its MasterCard debit cards. It will also have to pay for all of the illegal charges.
A spokesperson told WBZ Monday they didn't hear about the breach until mid-January because the breach was in a card processing company not related to St. Mary's. "In this case, it would be the merchant processing company's fault. We don't know which one is responsible for this," said Battista.
Letters were sent out to customers affected by the breach on Feb. 18. For the time being, St. Mary's is also monitoring accounts and reducing point of sale (POS) limits to $250 a day.
It's not clear yet if this breach is part of the
Heartland Payment Systems breach in January.
In that case, hackers broke into the computers it uses to process transactions for more than 175,000 businesses.
Read: Protect Yourself From Identity Theft
If you detect any suspicious activity, you should call your bank and one of the three major credit bureaus and place a fraud alert on your credit report.
Equifax: (800) 525-6285
Experian: (888) 397-3742
TransUnion: (800) 680-7289
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