IMGCAP(1)]
Three credit unions and two banks last week became among the first financial institutions to seek recompense through the courts against Heartland Payment Systems for one of the biggest credit card breaches ever, according to Credit Union Journal, a CardLine sister publication. A civil suit filed last week by Matadors Community CU, GECU, MidFlorida FCU, Amalgamated Bank of New York and Farmers State Bank of Iowa asks the U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Trenton to order Heartland to provide them compensation for the millions they have spent to notify customers, replace credit and debit cards, and compensate customers for fraud the breach caused. The suit comes as thousands of credit unions are canceling and replacing cards and are reporting increasing incidents of fraud on compromised cards. In their suit, the credit unions say the breach exposed their members' credit and debit card numbers, expiration dates, internal bank codes, personal identification and confidential financial information. They want the court to award them reimbursement for expenses accrued to stem the breach and assess millions in damages. Heartland, based in Princeton, N.J., processes accounts for more than 250,000 merchants around the country, processing about 100 million card transactions per month.
