Silence after a security breach spells trouble for grocery chain
Customers of the St. Louis-based Schnucks grocery chain have discovered abuse of their credit and debit card info. Schnucks is staying mum. Bad idea.
Schnucks grocery stores (a regional chain based in St. Louis) is learning this lesson—and , in my opinion, unnecessarily so.
According to news reports, on March 15, 2013, shoppers began discovering that their credit and debit card information had been stolen and fraudulently used out of state.
Schnucks said nothing—nada, zilch, no comment. The news became public when KSDK (the St. Louis NBC affiliate) received an email about it from a shopper/viewer and started its probe.
Schnucks would say only that it was aware of the problem and was looking into it. No apology, no advice, no information.
A check of the Schnucks website and Facebook page showed no reference to the fraud.
The story continued to escalate as more and more people reported their card numbers stolen.
Channel 5 recently aired a story during its 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts. I was asked for comments about Schnucks’ lack of candor.
Schnucks issued a slightly more detailed statement for the story:
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