Warning for Some Michaels Shoppers

There is a warning for those who shopped at Michaels Stores between February and May. The payment PIN pads at seven Colorado stores were tampered with, including the three here in Colorado Springs, potentially exposing debit card information.

Now some shoppers say their bank accounts were compromised this weekend. Eveline Lews first heard of the security breach in May, but she didn?t notice anything unusual with her accounts, until this weekend. ?We got a call from the fraudulent unit of our bank,? said Lewis. ?And they said that there was some activity on it that they want to check out.?

Lewis said someone was withdrawing money from her account from an ATM in Torrance, California.

?They were taking out 83 dollars at a time and then there was a dollar fifty processing fee from the ATM.?

Then a few hours later she got a call alerting her that someone was trying to take money from another one of her accounts. She said it just so happened that she used debit cards for both accounts at Michaels back in May.

?I very, very seldom use both cards at the same time,? said Lewis. ?That?s why I’m thinking that It was Michael’s that it had occurred at.?

But at this point she says there is no way to know for sure. ?You always think that you’re not the one whose going to get hit until you do.?

Michael?s has since equipped stores with new tamper-resistant payment terminals.

KRDO NEWSCHANNEL 13 received a statement from Michaels. In it, Doug Marker, the Vice President of Loss Prevention and Safety said, ?As our investigation continues, we are working with banks and card issuers to determine which unauthorized transactions are related to the PIN pad tampering at Michaels and which are not. It cannot be assumed that all fraud experienced by any Michaels shopper is necessarily connected to Michaels. We continue to encourage anyone who has experienced a fraudulent transaction, related or not, to work directly with their bank and card issuer to protect their account. We are continuing to update Michaels.com with new information as it becomes available.?