I spent about an hour last Friday doing what thousands of St. Louis area residents have done or will be doing in coming days: “Clean up on aisle Schnucks.”
I received an ominous email Thursday night titled “Bank of America Alert: Irregular Card Activity.” Being a Schnucks customer who had used a debit card at a Kirkwood location in late March, I was prepared for bad news. However, I had been monitoring my accounts every day for weeks to catch any fraudulent charges as soon as possible. I was never ripped off, but after calling Bank of America I learned—as the world did on Sunday morning—that many of us had cards compromised even though there were no weird transactions.
In fact, more than 2 million cards used in 79 stores could have been impacted by the Schnucks hacking affair. Also, we now know that this mess has been stewing since late December. Schnucks says it didn’t know until March 15. That is their story, and they're sticking to it—whether we believe it or not.
I shop at Schnucks and will continue to do so—with cash. I praised the grocer last June for its 25-percent-off meat section, calling it a great idea that helps out consumers in tough economic times. But the handling of this situation is unforgivable. The company knew something was amiss, yet it let customers continue down a high-tech road that could lead to either being ripped off, inconvenienced, or both.
Scott Schnuck finally offered a statement from someone named Schnuck, but it’s too little and way too late. I have met and like Schnucks spokesperson Lori Willis, but she was put in a terrible situation by her employer. I said on Donnybrook on March 28 that someone from the Schnuck family needed to make a statement and issue an apology. It would not come until April 14.
As I sat awaiting my turn to address the card situation at a Bank of America branch, I really felt like I was owed an apology. This was time and energy that could have been spent elsewhere. By the way, the gentleman who helped me had to print out forms to request new cards. He had run out of copies in his office.
“You’ve been doing this a lot, I guess,” I said.
He smiled and, without giving up BOA secrets, said “yes.”
Two class-action suits have been filed against Schnucks—and I think I’ll have to join one or both.
For those of you who think this is greed, or a situation in which attorneys will reap all the cash and plaintiffs will get Schnucks coupons, I remind you of a December 2011 blog post that I wrote on this site. I received a $98 check from Bank of America, because of a class-action lawsuit in response to some debit card shenanigans. The suit was settled, and I got a nice present right before Christmas.
I doubt I’ll receive much from the Schnucks class-action situation. But if the company could be so cavalier with its customers, it's only right that those customers take action to demonstrate that we don’t appreciate how this went down.
Commentary by Alvin Reid
