Pizza Lovers Not Out of the Woods for Potential Fraud Yet; Cici's Breach Update

All-you-can-eat Pizza lovers should still be watching payment card statements for fraudulent charges after Cici’s Pizza announced a breach at more than 135 locations earlier this year. It has now posted a list of the locations that were affected on its website. The majority of them are in Texas.

The company recently released a statement after investigations were completed saying that malware was found on some of their point-of-sale (POS) systems. The vast majority of those  systems were infected in March. However, it also acknowledged that some had been compromised since 2015.

Cici’s said the malware had been removed from all store, but that doesn’t mean that anyone visiting those stores should stop diligently checking their statements. If something looks out of place at all, contact the card-issuer and get it resolved as soon as possible. There are limits on how much responsibility cardholders must assume in the case of fraud, but it’s not necessarily zero. Work with your financial institution to take care of any situations immediately to limit the cost to you and to them. These costs go into the billions of dollars. According to a July 2015 Nilson Report, the majority of these losses to card issuers and merchants occur at the point of sale from those using counterfeit cards.

Which brings up the point of using credit vs. debit when given the choice at the terminal. Choose to use credit when possible. While the criminals can still make a copy of your card, they won’t be able to use it to drain your bank account of cash while you are working with the financial institution to resolve fraudulent charges.