Epsilon data breach (email addresses)
 

Got this email today from Barclay's Bank regarding my Choice Privileges Visa:

Dear Customer,

Re: Important information regarding a breach to the privacy of your email address.

Barclays Bank of Delaware is the bank behind your credit card referenced above. We have been informed by Epsilon, a marketing vendor we use to send emails to customers, that someone outside their company gained unauthorized access to files in their systems that included your email address. This has affected many of our credit cards under our various co-brands, including the brand on your card.

Epsilon has assured us that the only information that was obtained was your name and email address. Please be assured your account and any other confidential or personally identifiable information were not at risk.

It is possible you may receive spam email messages as a result which could potentially ask you for additional information about your account. Please note, Barclays will never ask you in an email to verify sensitive information such as your full account number, Username, Password or Social Security Number. Therefore, any email which does so should be treated suspiciously, even if it looks like it comes from Barclays. As a reminder, we urge you to be cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown third parties.

Barclays is one of many companies affected and so you may receive similar notifications from other companies.

Please visit the "Privacy and Security" section at our website www.BarclaycardUS.com for more information on protecting your personal information.

We sincerely regret this has taken place and for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Barclays is committed to protecting customers against the misuse of their personal information and we take security issues very seriously. We vigorously monitor the security of our systems and require all third party vendors to adhere to strict security and privacy policies and procedures.

Please know that a full investigation of this matter is under way by Epsilon and we will continue to work diligently to protect your personal information.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer care center at the phone number on the back of your credit card.

Sincerely,

Larry Drexler
Chief Privacy Officer
Barclays Bank of Delaware

Karen Smithson
Information Security Officer
Barclays Bank of Delaware

i did get same exactly email but from us bank
so i will think twice before i open any of those links

I received the same e-mail from barclays, but it was about my Travelocity Amex.

It's real (but perhaps the OP can fix the title so that other people might be able to find this thread in a search).

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news...each?gt1=43001

What a pain. At least they did not give away birthdays, social security numbers, addresses, and other information that can be used to steal your identity.

I get so much spam now I doubt I'll notice any difference.

Moderator action
 

Done. A limitation of the software is that only a moderator is able to edit a thread title.

Thanks, mia.

I thought it was just credit card companies, but I got another one from AbeBooks. Same deal - Epsilon has been breached.

I just had a strange charge on my BA visa that I disputed and they immediately cancelled/re-issued the card. I wonder if the issues are connected, and if I should do the same thing with my Barclay's card.

What a nightmare for all concerned.

I doubt it - as mentioned, Epsilon is an external agency that sends the emails for each company, so the database only contains your name and email.

Add "Best Buy" to the list
 

Dear Valued Best Buy Customer,

On March 31, we were informed by Epsilon, a company we use to send emails to our customers, that files containing the email addresses of some Best Buy customers were accessed without authorization.

We have been assured by Epsilon that the only information that may have been obtained was your email address and that the accessed files did not include any other information. A rigorous assessment by Epsilon determined that no other information is at risk. We are actively investigating to confirm this.

For your security, however, we wanted to call this matter to your attention. We ask that you remain alert to any unusual or suspicious emails. As our experts at Geek Squad would tell you, be very cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown senders.

In keeping with best industry security practices, Best Buy will never ask you to provide or confirm any information, including credit card numbers, unless you are on our secure e-commerce site, www.bestbuy.com. If you receive an email asking for personal information, delete it. It did not come from Best Buy.

Our service provider has reported this incident to the appropriate authorities.

We regret this has taken place and for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We take your privacy very seriously, and we will continue to work diligently to protect your personal information. For more information on keeping your data safe, please visit:
http://www.geeksquad.com/do-it-yours...data-safe.aspx.

Sincerely,

Barry Judge
Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer
Best Buy

Add Tivo to the list
 

Add Tivo customers to the list of Eplison customers

I received same email from Chase and Target today. On Saturday got the same thing from Kroger.

Hilton HHonors sent me an email.

1800 Flowers should also be on the list.

bebe, hsn, target should also be on the list

two others to add
 

Ameriprise
and Ritz Carlton (not just rewards)

i've received 42 (so far). i thought it had ended but i got one more today.

to me, the most ironic thing was that epsilon was used to send a lot of the notification emails...

Credit Card Fraud
 

Any of you getting unauthorized transactions on Citi or Barclay's frequent flyer credit cards in the past 30 days? Which cards? What region of the country did the unauthorized transactions take place? Something seems to be amiss as cards are getting hit with fraudulent transactions that have never left possession.

You may have heard of the Epsilon fiasco.

Epsilon's customers include among others Capital One Financial Corp., Barclays Bank, U.S. Bancorp and Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase. My cards from Citi and Barclays were both hit. I know of another unrelated Citi card hit at the same time.

Is the public being lied to about the Epsilon data breach? Were more than email addresses compromised in the Epsilon fiaso? Would be nice to compare notes if others are seeing fraudulent transactions on their frequent flyer credit cards in the past month to see if there are indications of a pattern.

Moving to Other Credit Cards forum. I suggest posting to Creditboards.com.

My own datapoint is that I've seen no issues with my VX Card (Barclays). I'm very familiar with Epsilon (internally). They do not have CC info.

i got hit with a lot of fraud on my citi card, which is strange because i rarely use it anyway. someone signed me up for free business cards, t shirts, weekly coffee beans, movie posters, all this garbage

live on texas got call from discvercard today some stranges charges on portland oregon i dont know if have to be any with the epsilon breach

Given recent experience with fraud on a Citi and a Barclays card, I would not bet the farm that sensitive data was not recently hacked.

Yes, but did the file they got from the banks have such info on it? Or was a system interface hacked? Or was Epsilon just part of a larger hack. Something smells bad - the public relations mouthwash ain't cutting it. The leak of my Barclay's and Citi cc data sufficient to run up multiple charges on the east coast came outside my sphere - the finger points where it will and it is pointing toward the compromise of a customer master data file with multiple bank's data.:td: