Five Star cancels thousands of debit cards

Oct 13, 2010 at 09:25 am by Observer-Review


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Five Star cancels thousands of debit cards

FINGER LAKES—Five Star Bank, headquartered in Warsaw, N.Y., took a preemptive measure of canceling nearly 2,000 customers’ Visa debit accounts due to card numbers compromised by merchant computers.
Matt Murtha, director of marketing for Five Star Bank, said the cards were compromised at some ALDI supermarket locations. The supermarket chain said card swiping terminals had been tampered with to get the information, in an Oct. 1 press release.
ALDI said the fraud had occurred at ALDI stores in 11 states. According to the press release, fraudulent activity in New York was in the Greater Rochester area and the Lower Hudson Valley. Last week, the Penn Yan ALDI manager said he has not had this problem at his store.
Five Star Bank operates in western and central New York, and has branches and ATM locations in Penn Yan, Watkins Glen, Dundee and Hammondsport. Murtha explained it is not just Five Star Bank customers who were affected. He said the bank decided to take the measure of canceling cards to stop fraudulent activity.
He added, just because a card was canceled did not mean the information was stolen. Murtha said around 2,000 cards were canceled, while only about 50 accounts were actually compromised.
Five Star Bank called customers to inform them, Wednesday, Oct. 6. Murtha said the bank is now working on sending out new cards to customers.
Murtha added the last time the bank did a mass cancelation was about five years ago when card information was stolen from purchases made at T.J. Maxx.
ALDI said when the company became aware of the crime, they reviewed all stores and removed any suspect terminals. ALDI added additional security measures are being put in place to prevent this type of crime from happening again.
 

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