3 On Your Side: After Series Of Hacking Incidents, Some Consumers Nervous About Shopping At Impacted Stores
By Jim Donovan
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Staples is looking into a potential credit card data breach and has been in touch with law enforcement officials about the issue. The office supplies retailer said Tuesday that if it turns up any data discrepancies during its investigation, customers won't be responsible for fraudulent activity on their credit cards as long as it is reported in a timely manner.
News of this latest potential data breach comes after a series of high-profile hacking incidents.
And just as we're coming up on the busiest time of year for retailers.
In a new poll 3 On Your Side's Jim Donovan finds that some consumers are nervous about shopping at impacted stores.
Just ahead of the holiday shopping season, a survey of 865 consumers, by CreditCards.com found 45 percent of them anxious about using credit cards at retailers hit by recent data breaches.
According to the poll, 29 percent said they would probably avoid a store if it had been a victim of a hack, and 16 percent said they would definitely not return to one of those stores.
"It does seem like a new data breach hits the headlines every few days, so it's one of those things that we're going to have to adjust to, and people are going to have to remember that they'll need to take some steps on their own to keep themselves safe," said Matt Schulz with CreditCards.com.
While most retailers will take extra precautions during the busy holiday season, consumers can take their own steps too.
"The most important thing to know is that no one cares about your money as much as you do. So it's incumbent upon you to do things like checking your bank account online, checking your credit card statement online to make sure that nothing strange is going on," said Shulz.
When choosing between debit or credit, choose carefully. That's because when there's a fraudulent charge on a debit card, that means that you've lost real money out of a real account that can sometimes take a couple of weeks to get replaced.
