uT-Mobile, Experian Data Breach Exposes Personal Info For 15M Consumersr

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• Some bad news to start off October — hackers stole personal information for around 15 million consumers from a database of T-Mobile customers and applicants that was held by Experian.

  According to Experian, the breach revealed the following information about affected consumers: name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, identification number (i.e., driver’s license, military ID, or passport number) and any additional information used in T- Mobile’s credit assessment process. The company says that no payment card or bank account info was included in the theft.

  The compromised data comes from anyone who applied for a T-Mobile account after Sept. 1, 2013 and before Sept. 16, 2015.

  The law requires that creditors maintain records of all credit applicants for 25 months in case it’s needed to answer questions or resolve disputes. Because of this requirement, the hackers were able to access all that historical info.

  Even though it didn’t include credit card or bank account info, a clever ID thief can do a lot with the stolen information. So far, Experian says it has seen no evidence that the data has been used, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be sold to scammy buyers eventually.

  Anyone who applied for a new contract or financed a phone through T-Mobile in the last two years should keep a vigilant eye on their bank and card accounts. Alert your bank and card issuer if you see anything out of the ordinary.

  Additionally, Experian is asking anyone who might be affected to go to http://ift.tt/1PQUic9 if they want to register for two years of free credit monitoring.

  Customers can also call 866-369-0422 or send an e-mail to consumersupport@protectmyid.com if they have questions.

  T-Mobile is putting blame for the breach squarely on the shoulders of Experian.

  “Obviously I am incredibly angry about this data breach and we will institute a thorough review of our relationship with Experian,” reads a letter from T-Mo CEO John Legere to his customers, “but right now my top concern and first focus is assisting any and all consumers affected. I take our customer and prospective customer privacy VERY seriously. This is no small issue for us. I do want to assure our customers that neither T-Mobile’s systems nor network were part of this intrusion and this did not involve any payment card numbers or bank account information.”

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uStaples Kicks Off Brown Thursday Announcements: Will Close On Thanksgivingr

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  Over the last few years, a growing trend for retailers has been to open up on Thanksgiving Day, sometimes at an obscenely early hour. Maybe that isn’t working out so well for them after all: one retailer that has opened on Gray Thursday for the last few years has decided to close up and let its workers spend the holiday at home.

  In a press release touting its online deals that will start on Thursday, the chain announced that the deals will only be online, and the stores will stay closed. ”

  “On Thanksgiving Day, customers can shop from home on Staples.com and then continue their shopping in stores starting at 6 a.m. on Black Friday,” the company’s president of North American stores and online shopping, Demos Parneros, said in a statement.

  When it has opened on Thanksgiving Day, Staples has at least limited its hours, opening at 9 P.M. in 2013 and 6 P.M. to 10 P.M. in 2014.

  Companies choosing to stay closed on the holiday harvest at least some online goodwill and good publicity, which may or may not be worth the loss in sales. Black Friday weekend sales are actually falling, so maybe other retailers will take the hint too.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uOnly A Few Banks Are Making Their Credit Card Customers Memorize PINsr

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  One compromise that financial institutions have made in the national shift to EMV smart cards from magnetic-stripe cards is that Americans will sign for their purchases instead of entering a 4-digit PIN. Maybe banks think that we’re stupider than the rest of the world, since other countries do use PINs.

  Some banks have faith in Americans, though. Not many, but some. One example is First Niagara, a regional bank in upstate New York: they took over many of HSBC’s consumer branches when HSBC decided to quit the consumer banking market.

  They don’t have very many credit card customers: only about 250,000 cards, which is tiny compared to the Bank of Americas and Capital Ones of the world. However, First Niagara has faith in their customers. They’re the largest bank requiring their credit card customers to use PINs instead of signatures for transactions.

  A few smaller banks are using PINs, including First Premier, a bank catering to less creditworthy consumers that has some notoriously terrible cards. Target also plans to require customers to use PINs once they get around to re-issuing EMV cards for their store cards.

  Here’s the catch: customers won’t be allowed to use the same PIN on both their credit and debit cards. Will they be able to remember four extra digits? I have faith in the American people. Maybe.

  Bank Bets Americans Can Remember Another PIN [Wall Street Journal]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

u$80 iPad For Sale In Supermarket Parking Lot Was Actually A Tiler

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  There’s one important rule that can save you from a number of scams: when a stranger walks up to you in a parking lot and offers to sell you something, say no. Always say no. If a woman in California had obeyed this rule, she’d still have $80 in her pocket and no pieces of tile masquerading as iPads.

  She told her story to local news hoping to warn others away from the same scam. She says that a well-dressed man driving an SUV came up to her in a Winco grocery store parking lot and offered to sell her an iPad mini 3 for $200, which is $150 below the starting list price for that model. She haggled the price down to $80, and probably felt like she was getting a great deal.

  Well, until she opened up the box and found a bubble-wrapped piece of tile in place of an iPad. She decided to speak out to local media, even though she felt stupid, because the man’s vehicle was packed with other electronics. “He had TV, other iPads and Xbox Ones and also phone boxes,” she told Victor Valley News. That’s a lot of potential victims. Be careful out there, everyone, and stay away from the Some Dude In A Parking Lot electronics store.

  Woman Buys Fake Ipad Outside Winco in Victorville [Victor Valley News]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uColleges Paying Sketchy Agents To Recruit Rich Foreign Studentsr

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  With schools looking for ways to bolster their bottom lines without having to rely on federal funding, a growing number of colleges are paying recruiters to bring in well-heeled students from overseas — even though some of these agents have been caught trying to fake applicants’ transcripts.

  It’s illegal for colleges to pay per-student commissions for recruiting agents if those students get federal financial aid. But this sort of arrangement is perfectly legal if an agent is rewarded for attracting foreign students who aren’t eligible for that aid.

  The Wall Street Journal reports that an estimated 1-in-4 colleges now pay independent overseas recruiters to identify and woo applicants.

  Wichita State University in Kansas pays up to $1,600 per enrolled student to these agents. As a result, it has seen foreign student applications shoot up “precipitously” since 2013.

  And while it might make sense both financially for schools to target international students who often pay higher tuition, critics say the independent recruiting system is rife with fraud and other problems.

  Wichita State acknowledges that it had to cut ties with an agent it suspected of faking transcripts. The school rejected those applicants but continues to use agents.

  Dickinson State University in North Dakota stopped using agents after it was sanctioned by its accrediting body. An audit of the school found that agent-recruited students weren’t fulfilling graduation requirements.

  It’s not just schools that are hiring agents. A large number of students in China looking to attend U.S. schools also hire these same recruiters. That means the agents may be getting paid twice for doing one job.

  A U.C. Berkeley student from China tells the Journal that his family paid around $30,000 to have an agent redo his application essay. He says he was told that “no one knows about the whole application process better than they do so I had no choice.”

  A student at NYU, the school with the highest percentage of international students in the U.S., admits to paying $26,000 to have her essay ghostwritten. The story told in her essay — about her father reforming his life after being dragged out of a gambling den — didn’t actually happen to her.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uAmazon To Prohibit The Sale Of Apple TV, Google Chromecastr

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  Amazon appears to be taking a page out of Apple’s playbook by removing competitors’ products from its virtual shelves. The e-commerce giant said today that would prohibit the sale of video-streaming devices from rivals Google and Apple that aren’t compatible with its own Prime video service. 

  In an email to marketplace sellers, Amazon said it would stop selling Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast, Bloomberg reports.

  The online retailer said that sellers would be prohibited from posting new listings for the products starting immediately, while current postings will be taken down Oct. 29.

  According to Amazon, the decision to remove the products came about because of difficulties streaming Amazon’s Prime service on Chromecast and Apple TV.

  “Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime,” Amazon said. “It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.”

  Amazon will continue to sell devices that work with Prime, like the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation consoles.

  While it might make sense to stop selling products that don’t work with your preferred system, not all Amazon customers are Prime members and have access to the streaming service.

  “Fewer than 20% of Amazon customers are Prime members,” Michael Pachter, a financial analyst, tells Bloomberg. “What about the 80% who want an Apple TV to stream Netflix? I think that the excuse of avoiding customer confusion is a not-so-veiled attempt to favor Amazon first-party products over third-party products, and think it was a bad move.”

  Amazon to Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices [Bloomberg]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uGM Testing Car-Sharing Program In NYC As Alternative To Zipcar, Uberr

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  Though carmakers are painfully aware that people living in big cities are less likely to own a car than in less densely populated areas, where public transit isn’t as convenient of an option, that isn’t keeping them from trying to get a foothold one way or another in those markets. At some point or another, even city dwellers find themselves in need of a car. To that end, General Motors is testing a car-sharing program in Manhattan, to rival services like Uber and Zipcar.

  GM is kicking off the pilot program — called Let’s Drive NYC — for residents of an apartment complex in Times Square, offering rentals either for $10 per hour or $75 per day, the company said in a press release. Customers in the test program can opt for either a Chevrolet Trax compact sport utility vehicle or Chevy Equinox small SUV.

  If the test is successful, the company could roll it out to elsewhere — there are already plans to give it a go in another U.S. city that GM isn’t identifying.

  “We view evolving consumer preferences, such as car-sharing, as real business opportunities,” President Dan Ammann said.

  Let’s Drive NYC starts today and costs less than Zipcar, which charges $12.75 per hour during the week and $94 for a day and more on weekends. Residents of the apartment complex included in the pilot program will also get three hours of free rentals per month when they make their rent payments.

  GM isn’t the first to introduce a car-sharing program, albeit this one is a bit different: Ford launched a peer-to-peer service in six cities recently that allows individual car owners to rent their vehicles out to strangers via an app.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist