Friday, August 25, 2006
Thieves raid accounts of Dollar Tree customers
Thieves raid accounts of Dollar Tree customers
By TOM SHEAN, The Virginian-Pilot
© August 4, 2006
Last updated: 8:18 PM
Using stolen personal identification and account numbers, thieves have withdrawn hundreds of thousands of dollars from the bank accounts of consumers who used debit cards at Dollar Tree stores in California and southern Oregon, police departments in the two states said.
In Oregon, consumers have reported losing $250,000 from unauthorized withdrawals during the past month, said Lt. Tim George, a spokesman for the Medford, Ore., Police Department. The withdrawals, he said, were made from automated teller machines in southern California.
Police aren't certain how the account and ID numbers became available, George said, but the evidence suggests that thieves gained access to consumers' account data through a card-processing company, he said.
Tim Reid, a spokesman for Dollar Tree Stores, said the Chesapeake-based retailer has been working closely with local law enforcement agencies, the Secret Service and Visa, the marketer of card-payment systems.
"The safety and security of our customers is of utmost importance to us," Reid said. The problems with customers' losses from their bank accounts appear to be confined to "a small number of stores on the West Coast," he said. He declined to discuss the possible scope of those losses or when the company became aware of suspicious account activity.
Dollar Tree has more than 3,100 stores in 48 states. At the end of January, 209 of its stores were in California and 62 were in Oregon.
In Modesto, Calif., the Police Department has received about 150 reports from consumers who have lost $170,000 from their accounts after making purchases with debit cards at one particular Dollar Tree store, said Sgt. Craig Gundlach, a spokesman.
The thieves, he said, collected data about customers' accounts between mid-March and mid-April and tapped their accounts in June.
"The detectives here feel this is something more than kids or small-time criminals," Gundlach said. "This appears to be more sophisticated."
"I've been here 14 years, and I don't believe that we've experienced anything of this magnitude," he said.
Dollar Tree has its own investigative team at work on the West Coast, and the company is working closely with Modesto's Police Department, Gundlach said. "They've cooperated with every request that we've had, including that they not release any details of the investigation," he said.
The two police spokesmen said they did not know if there were any suspects in the cases.
The Secret Service has taken a major role in the investigation, Gundlach said. Calls to the service's field office in Sacramento for information about the cases were not returned.
The Secret Service investigates crimes involving financial institutions, including fraudulent access by means of debit and credit cards and fraudulent electronic transfers of money.
A large Sacramento, Calif.-based credit union, Golden 1 Credit Union, was one of the institutions where accounts were hit by thieves, according to a recent report by the Sacramento TV station KCRA 3. Teresa Halleck, the credit union's president and chief executive officer, declined to discuss the status of its members' accounts.
However, it appeared that the losses suffered by debit card users who made purchases at Dollar Tree stores involved a breach at a card-processing company rather than a problem at the retailer's stores, Halleck said.
Processors of credit and debit card transactions gather identification and payment data from retailers and route it to customers' financial institutions.
Last year, a break-in by a computer hacker called attention to the role that processors play in the payment system. Because of security weaknesses at the particular processor, CardSystems Solutions, more than 40 million card accounts were exposed to potential losses from fraud.
Reach Tom Shean at (757) 446-2379 or tom.shean@pilotonline.com.
By TOM SHEAN, The Virginian-Pilot
© August 4, 2006
Last updated: 8:18 PM
Using stolen personal identification and account numbers, thieves have withdrawn hundreds of thousands of dollars from the bank accounts of consumers who used debit cards at Dollar Tree stores in California and southern Oregon, police departments in the two states said.
In Oregon, consumers have reported losing $250,000 from unauthorized withdrawals during the past month, said Lt. Tim George, a spokesman for the Medford, Ore., Police Department. The withdrawals, he said, were made from automated teller machines in southern California.
Police aren't certain how the account and ID numbers became available, George said, but the evidence suggests that thieves gained access to consumers' account data through a card-processing company, he said.
Tim Reid, a spokesman for Dollar Tree Stores, said the Chesapeake-based retailer has been working closely with local law enforcement agencies, the Secret Service and Visa, the marketer of card-payment systems.
"The safety and security of our customers is of utmost importance to us," Reid said. The problems with customers' losses from their bank accounts appear to be confined to "a small number of stores on the West Coast," he said. He declined to discuss the possible scope of those losses or when the company became aware of suspicious account activity.
Dollar Tree has more than 3,100 stores in 48 states. At the end of January, 209 of its stores were in California and 62 were in Oregon.
In Modesto, Calif., the Police Department has received about 150 reports from consumers who have lost $170,000 from their accounts after making purchases with debit cards at one particular Dollar Tree store, said Sgt. Craig Gundlach, a spokesman.
The thieves, he said, collected data about customers' accounts between mid-March and mid-April and tapped their accounts in June.
"The detectives here feel this is something more than kids or small-time criminals," Gundlach said. "This appears to be more sophisticated."
"I've been here 14 years, and I don't believe that we've experienced anything of this magnitude," he said.
Dollar Tree has its own investigative team at work on the West Coast, and the company is working closely with Modesto's Police Department, Gundlach said. "They've cooperated with every request that we've had, including that they not release any details of the investigation," he said.
The two police spokesmen said they did not know if there were any suspects in the cases.
The Secret Service has taken a major role in the investigation, Gundlach said. Calls to the service's field office in Sacramento for information about the cases were not returned.
The Secret Service investigates crimes involving financial institutions, including fraudulent access by means of debit and credit cards and fraudulent electronic transfers of money.
A large Sacramento, Calif.-based credit union, Golden 1 Credit Union, was one of the institutions where accounts were hit by thieves, according to a recent report by the Sacramento TV station KCRA 3. Teresa Halleck, the credit union's president and chief executive officer, declined to discuss the status of its members' accounts.
However, it appeared that the losses suffered by debit card users who made purchases at Dollar Tree stores involved a breach at a card-processing company rather than a problem at the retailer's stores, Halleck said.
Processors of credit and debit card transactions gather identification and payment data from retailers and route it to customers' financial institutions.
Last year, a break-in by a computer hacker called attention to the role that processors play in the payment system. Because of security weaknesses at the particular processor, CardSystems Solutions, more than 40 million card accounts were exposed to potential losses from fraud.
Reach Tom Shean at (757) 446-2379 or tom.shean@pilotonline.com.
Labels: Dollar Tree
# posted by raveneye @ 8:20 AM 
