In June 2014, P.F. Chang’s restaurants confirmed they had been contacted by the United States Secret Service regarding a possible data breach affecting customer credit and debit cards.
On August 4, 2014, they announced they had completed their investigation and confirmed that their credit card processing system had been compromised and that data from some customer credit and debit cards from 33 restaurants may have been stolen.
They have said that the window for this data breach was from October 2013 until they were notified in June 2014. They have provided a list of the specific restaurants that were affected along with more exact windows on a special page on their website: http://www.pfchangs.com/security/.
If you’ve eaten at a P.F. Chang’s in the United States between October 2013 and June 2014 you should visit their web page and review the list of restaurants and the times affected.
P.F. Chang’s is offering 12 months of identity theft protection for customers who dined at these restaurants during these times through AllClear Secure for the next 12 months starting August 4, 2014. More information on the protections and how to take advantage of this offering can be found on the P.F. Chang’s website and here: https://pfchangs.allclearid.com/.
If you dined at any of those restaurants during those times and paid with a debit or credit card you should review the information P.F.Chang’s and AllClear Secure have provided and take advantage of the protections they are offering.
If you’ve eaten at any P.F. Chang’s from October 2013 until June 2014 you should be sure to review all your statements for signs of any malicious activity. If you see anything suspicious you should contact your bank or financial institution.
For everyone, this episode underscores again how it’s important that everyone should consider getting real time identity theft protection. As data breaches like this become more common it’s increasingly important that people take proactive steps to protect their identities and financial information.
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