Recently the news has reported another debit card breach found at another large retail chain, this time in Michaels Arts and Craft stores. The impact involves debit card purchases at Michaels in 20 different states. It appears that there was a tampering with the PIN pads at checkout counters, either by hacking into them or by replacing them with their own, compromised PIN pads.

The store said they had discovered 90 pads across the following states that were tampered with: Illinois, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia and Washington.

If you've shopped at a Michaels, keep an eye on your bank account. Look for a strange withdrawal of around $503. That was the amount most often deducted from the debit cards stolen from Michaels.

If you have shopped at a Michael's recently and are concerned with the integrity of your debit card, please contact the Credit Union and we will be happy to reissue a new card at no charge to you.

I have made it a point to talk to you about recent legislation involving the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act, and in particular, the Durbin Amendment. This piece of legislation, if allowed to become enacted as submitted, will restrict the fees that retailers will pay to financial institutions for each debit card transaction. Retailers feel that they are paying excessive fees to financial institutions but they end up passing along these fees to the consumer in higher product prices. They want you to believe that they will pass along these savings to you if the legislation is enacted instead of pocketing the savings for themselves. Retailers have little, if any, liability though if there is a breach in their system that compromises your debit card and bank account...the financial institutions (including Gulf States) ends up footing the bill for fraudulent charges, issuing new debit cards and sending them to you. You are inconvenienced because you have to suspend using your old "compromised" debit card until we can get a new one in your hands. Also, when was the last time you saw a clerk at a store look at the back of your debit card to see if it has been signed? Not to mention the fact that they are supposed to compare the signature on the back of the card with how you sign their sales receipt.

This is one of the biggest issues facing small community banks and all credit unions in 2011 and beyond. As I have said before, this legislation is going to affect our bottom line and will also affect your pocket books. Banks have already started charging for fees that didn't exist before and it is directly related to this legislation.  

Every time I hear about another retailer experiencing a security breach or I use my debit card at a store without the store doing what they are supposed to do to protect my security and privacy, I feel like letting my voice be heard.  If you to would like your voice to be heard, please contact your State Representative (Florida State Representatives).