Stephen Kelly

Auburn, Ala.— Auburn students fell victim to credit card fraud after a national credit

card processor’s database was hacked by global Internet thieves.

Heartland Payment Systems acknowledged on Jan. 20 a breach in their computer

system that left the personal data of more than 600 million card owners at risk.

Jameson Page, a senior at Auburn, first realized his account had been compromised

last Saturday. Page incurred more than 1000 dollars of false charges to retail and

other stores in Massachusetts.

“It wasn’t my credit card, it was my debit card,” said Page, ”so that’s why I was really

upset because I didn’t think I would get my money back.”

Page said he knew of four other people who had to cancel their bankcards with

similar problems on the same day.

“I logged on to my bank account and saw that I had several hundred dollars worth of

purchases from somewhere in Massachusetts,” said Charles Barrett, also a senior,

who incurred the same problem.

Barrett disputed seven fraudulent charges on his account. His bank was able to

reimburse him for the charges.

Heartland, based in Princeton, N.J., functions as a middleman in transactions

between cardholders, businesses and financial institutions. The payment

processing company facilitates the payment and authorization of exchanges

between sellers and buyers all over the U.S. It services 250,000 business locations

nationwide and processes almost 100 million transactions in a month according to

its Web site.

Captain Tom Stofer of the Auburn Police Department attributes an increase in credit

card fraud to the growing trend of people using cards over cash.

“Anytime you’ve got more people using that type of system to pay their bills or to

pay their groceries,” said Stofer, “you’re going to have more people out there

misusing them or stealing them and using them.”

Page said his bank had already deactivated his card when he became aware of the

problem because of automatic fraud detectors on his card. After some paperwork

he was reimbursed for the stolen funds.

Robert H. B. Baldwin Jr., president and chief financial officer of Heartland, was

quoted in The New York Times as saying the hackers are believed to be a part of an

“international ring of hackers that are introducing breaches at a number of financial

institutions.”

Heartland officials believe the incident fist happened in 2008, but was not detected

until later. The Washington Post reported the source of the problem to be software

that recorded payment data as it was sent to the processor.

Baldwin told USA Today that the thieves had access to Heartland’s system for

“longer than weeks.”

Heartland announced in a press release following the incident that it is coordinating

with the Secret Service and the United States Department of Justice to resolve the

issue.

This breach in security will end up being costly for Heartland. “If you add it all up,

including legal costs, it could be as much as half a billion dollars in losses,” Avivah

Litan, a data security analyst, told The New York Times.

The card processor assured the public that cardholder’s Social Security numbers,

personal identification numbers (PIN), and addresses were kept safe amongst the

security breach. The company advises all cardholders to examine their bank

statements closely and report any suspicious charges.