TJ Maxx Not Really Helping Consumers »

That’s my opinion after reading the details of the proposed TJX lawsuit settlement. You can read the details here for yourself – but be warned – do not attempt to operate heavy machinery while reading this document because all the lawyer jargon will surely put you to sleep.

Here are a few of my issues with their proposed settlement:

1. TJX has agreed to compensate consumers for any time they lost “as a result of the intrusion,” but those calculations will assume a rate of $10 per hour. I don’t know how they came up with that figure, but victims that make more than $10 per hour and had to take time off of work to handle one of the many steps involved when one is a victim of identity theft are not really being compensated fairly. Lame.
2. The compensation also seems to be limited to $60 and will be in the form of $30 vouchers for making purchases at TJX only. Further, if a lot of consumers agree and “the total of such claims exceeds $7 million, the dollar amount of each voucher will be proportionately reduced.” I do not shop at TJ Maxx. What good is a $30 voucher from a store at which I do not shop?Furthermore, what if my total time amounted to 7 hours? Seven hours x $10 an hour is $70 and yet the compensation is limited to $60. Super-lame.

   In addition, even if I did shop at TJ Maxx and decided to use the measly $30 voucher, in all likelyhood I would probably spend more than $30 during my shopping trip. So, TJ Maxx is the real winner there.

   Lastly, what is the real value of a $30 TJ Maxx voucher? You can bet it is not $30. The store is probably out of pocket about $5 for each of those vouchers.

Evan Schuman had a great take on the settlement:

Let me see if I understand this correctly: Due to apparently recklessly weak security procedures, consumers that you invited into your stores had their credit card information and identities taken, all because they chose to buy your merchandise. How to make amends? Invite them back to bring their new credit cards and buy more stuff.

He even had a great idea for some radio commercials that TJ Maxx may want to consider:

“Come to the ‘We Ripped You Off and Got Away With It Special Celebration,’ with 25 percent off all jeans and 30 percent off if you use a credit card. Make sure to bring two forms of ID, though. Just kidding. You no longer have an identity.”

Cracked me up…

Anyway, I think this is a weak attempt by TJ Maxx to make this all go away. There are too many unanswered questions about this entire event. And U.S. District Court Judge William Young thinks so too because he told attorneys in a hearing in Boston Sept. 27 that he “had a lot of questions and concerns” about the settlement. Why is there not an option in the settlement that allows a victim to opt for cash instead of a voucher?

Until “big business” is held more responsible when they mismanage consumer’s sensitive data, these types of things will continue to happen and we will probably continue to place implicit trust in these retailers as we blindly hand over our personal information when we make purchases in their stores.

TJ Maxx Data Thief Irving Escobar Sentenced »

Irving Escobar, one of the main parties responsible for the T.J. Maxx database theft, has been sentenced to 5 years in prison and has to pay about $600,000 in restitution.

This is the latest news in the T.J. Maxx Identity theft fiasco, where more than 45 million personal records of their customers were stolen over an 18 month period, records which included customer names, credit card numbers, addresses, etc. I don’t shop at T.J. Maxx because my wife’s information was among those stolen and T.J. Maxx did not notify her or alert her or anything – not even an apology. But enough about me, back to Escobar’s story.

In March, Irving Escobar pleaded guilty to participating in an organized scheme to defraud and four others involved also pleaded guilty. A few others were arrested and have since been sentenced to probation: Dianelly Hernandez, Julio Alberti, Reinier Alvarez and Zenia Llorente. Escobar’s mother, Nair Alvarez, was deported to Venezuela after she pleaded guilty in March – hahaha, that is funny.

Authorities estimated a total loss of $3 million could be attributed to Escobar and his co-defendants on a nationwide scale. The unfortunate things, in my opinion, are 1) taxpayers now have to pay for these morons to live in prison, 2) with good behavior, they will probably not have to server their complete sentence and 3) identity theft victims in these cases will spend more time than that trying to clear up their credit.

Here is a post we did on what you should do if you suspect identity theft.

Stay Away from Quechup »

Trying to get back into blog mode, I naturally checked out one of Garry’s blogs and saw his post on the Quechup Scam.

I then ran across a post on eWeek about Quechup’s viral marketing. It boils down to Quechup spoofing email origins – what a bunch of morons. Can you believe that a “social networking” site would resort to these spammy, anti-social tactics to increase members?

Here is what Quechup’s privacy policy page states:

Quechup.com Privacy Policy
This site is owned and operated by iDate Ltd. Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At iDate, we want to make your experience online satisfying and safe.

Hmm…no so sure about that. I could not find anything in either the privacy policy or the terms of use stating that Quechup had permission to do what they apparently are doing. But one thing is for sure, if they want to succeed, they will have to change their marketing techniques.

Taking it a step further, with all of this negative publicty they are getting from the blogosphere, Quechup may already be doomed to failure because bloggers are not likely to forget this fiasco.

Michael Vick’s Attorney »

Ok, this is not technology, SEO or web design related. It is really an “are you kidding me?” statement and its my blog so I get to do this from time to time .

Quote from Michael Vick’s attorney, Billy Martin in July ’07:

“We look forward to the opportunity to being able to walk inside this courtroom and saying to the world, ‘Mike Vick is innocent.’”

Quote from Michael Vick’s attorney, Billy Martin, one month later:

“Mr. Vick has agreed to enter a plea of guilty to those charges and to accept full responsibility for his actions and the mistakes he has made,” Martin said in a statement. “Michael wishes to apologize again to everyone who has been hurt by this matter.”

That is a pretty big swing in position. “My client is innocent” to “my client is guilty” in a one month span of time? Did he not know that his client was guilty in July?

Stolen TJ Maxx Data Surfaces Again »

On June 9, the US Secret Service announced the arrests of some Cuban Nationals after they allegedly used stolen data from the TJ Maxx data breach and the 2005 Polo Ralph Lauren data breach to rack up about $75 million in fraudulent credit card charges. They also had in their possession about 200,000 stolen credit card numbers.

The group of losers had partnered up with another group of losers from Eastern Europe and setup somewhat of a credit card manufacturing plant. In the plants, run by the defendants, they created full credit cards cards complete with bank and credit card logos, magnetic strips and holograms.

Here are the names of the ones arrested on June 9:

• Julio Lopez, 30, of Hialeah, Fla.
• Anett Villar, 26, of Hialeah, Fla.
• Miguel Alegria, 46, of Hialeah, Fla.
• Raynier Pupo, 22, of Miami, Fla.
• Ariel Montero, 32, of Aventura, Fla.
• Javier Padron-Bravo, 35, of Aventura, Fla.

Read the complete story at eWeek