January 19, 2010
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News: Time Employee Misuses CC Information
Time Inc, a subsidiary of Time Warner, sent a warning out to customers announcing a potential credit card breach. In the warning, the company said that an ex-employee who had access to customers' credit card information may have stolen the data and misused it. Time also notified the New Hampshire Attorney General's office of the credit card breach. Time is one of the world's largest publishers with 22 U.S. magazine titles in its portfolio and 25 U.S. websites. Worldwide the company publishes 130 magazines including the renowned Time. Major titles include Sports Illustrated, Fortune, People, GOLF Magazine, Southern Living, This Old House, Essence, All You, and Entertainment Weekly.
The employee, who worked at Time Inc.'s Florida Customer Fulfillment Center, allegedly stole the credit card data of customers who called in to order magazine subscriptions. The employee's illegal activities were discovered after a complaint was filed by a New Hampshire (NH) resident which sparked an investigation. Currently, it does not appear that any other residents of NH have been affected by the credit card security breach. According to Time Inc., the employee has been terminated and the company is working with law enforcement authorities with the ongoing investigation.
This is not the first time that Time Warner has found itself in hot water. In 2005, the company's information management (IM) vendor, Iron Mountain, lost Time Warner backup tapes containing the credit card records, social security numbers, and other personal information of over 600,000 current and former employees. Iron Mountain is a world leader in IM and services over 140,000 firms worldwide. Time Warner also experienced difficulty when five laptops containing confidential and personal information pertaining to employee pensions were stolen from their Manhattan offices in 2007. Time Inc. will be giving all customers affected by the breach free credit reports from each of the three credit reporting bureaus.