We’ve all heard of the massive data breach at Home Depot, bigger than last years Target breach – 40 million cards to 56 million cards. But at those numbers, who’s counting?
Someone noted that after the Target breach everyone got a little apprehensive, but at this point we just roll our eyes and say, “There you go again“.
The good news is that Home Depot is offering one year of free credit monitoring for those who shopped, or rather those who “may have used a payment card at Home Depot after April 1, 2014“.
This is similar to what Target offered, though through a different provider. Target offered through Experian directly, Home Depot is offering through AllClearID. I assume they’ll send alerts via phone or email whenever a new item/change hits your credit report. I don’t know which credit bureau they’ll be using. They mention a three bureau-option, but that’s only for the paid subscription, not for the free monitoring via Home Depot. They mention that for Canadian customers they’re providing Equifax monitoring, but it’s unclear what the American/AllClear option will be.
I love my Target/Experian alerts, because they alert me via email whenever there’s any activity on my credit report. I was just alerted twice for a new Amex card I opened – they duplicated the new account – and I wouldn’t have found out for while were it not for these alerts. I still haven’t had a chance to clear that up, but I like the fact that I know about it.
Of course there are other options – you can get your credit report for free once a year, and you can sign up with a paid subscription to various providers who offer credit monitoring services. I never wanted to pay the fees, so I never signed up for those services, though I do periodically check my credit reports through various means. But it’s way easier just getting an alert whenever there is activity; I’d love to get such alerts from all 3 credit bureaus.
Many of us had some, uh, “hardware” to buy in Home Depot, myself included, which makes us eligible for Home Depot’s free credit monitoring. I signed up for it a couple days ago. I’m hoping it will be as useful as the Target/Experian monitoring which is expiring soon.
Originally, I wasn’t too concerned about the breach because there’s zero liability for unauthorized transactions, but then I realized that I had used my Serve card at Home Depot for the above-mentioned “hardware”. Since then, I make sure to keep any money in my Serve account in the “reserve” account which can’t be accessed via the card without transferring the money into the main account first. Of course there’s technically no liability for unauthorized transactions, but you’ll still need to wait/fight to get your money back.
I really should call in and ask them for a new card, but in my experience they are very slow and I’m afraid they’ll cancel the old one right away and I’ll be without Serve for a few weeks. Hard to imagine living without Serve;-)
Did anyone call in to have them replace their Serve card for a new one? How did it go?
