Cost Plus Evaluates Tampering

Oakland, Calif. Cost Plus World Market reported that the electronic-funds transfer devices (more commonly known as PIN pads) at eight of its southern California-based stores may have been tampered with by unauthorized third parties.

To date, there is no evidence of any credit-card fraud associated with the incident.

Cost Plus is working closely with its financial-institution partners and law-enforcement officials to ensure that any customers impacted by this incident are identified. The company is also working with its merchant bank and the payment-card issuers to ensure that any affected cards are blocked and reissued.

To augment the chainwide changes in its point-of-sale procedures earlier, Cost Plus began replacing the PIN pad devices throughout all of its stores nationwide and expects to complete the transition by the end of August. The chain also has engaged Verizon Business/Cybertrust, a national data-security firm, to review its overall data-security program.