Nationwide craft retailer Michaels faces a second lawsuit from a Chicago-area consumer over its card data breach that it made public in May of this year.
Mary Allen, of Libertyville, Ill., charged in her complaint that the national retailer had known about the breach for three months before it made the knowledge public on May 5.
She also charged that she used her debit card to purchase $18.16 worth of merchandise from a Michaels store in Vernon Hills, Ill.. She "unwittingly had her debit card information and PIN number stolen as a result," according to the complain. She subsequently discovered that her card had been used twice to steal over $1,000 from her account at Harris Bank.
She alleged the retail chain did not use "commercially reasonable steps" to safeguard its personal identification number pads from skimming attacks that eventually impacted stores in seven states.
The suit seeks to be recognized as a class action complaint with the class consisting of "all persons residing in the United States who made an in-store purchase at a Michaels store in the United States using a debit card that was swiped through a PIN pad at any time from Jan. 1, 2011 to the present."
