A significant number of First Commonwealth Bank customers soon will receive new debit cards.

The Indiana, Pa.-based bank recently was notified by the Fraud Management Department of MasterCard International of a data security breach of a U.S.-based merchant which has since been identified as a card processor, Heartland Payment Systems of Princeton, N.J.

Affected customers soon will receive a new debit card but will keep their same PIN number.

"This was a payment processor so this is pretty unusual," Fulgenzio said. "MasterCard and Visa do a good job enforcing their rules and regulations. I think the situation is getting better because Visa and Mastercard are getting stricter with penalties for the compromise of data."

However, when breaches occur, customers are protected. "Any time there is an unauthorized transaction, the customer is protected by the Electronic Fraud Transaction Act," Fulgenzio said. "The customers are covered by these kinds of transactions, but it does create a hassle. They will not lose their money."


Platte Valley Companies and First State Bank have canceled bank cards for nearly 600 customers after learning the records of a third-party credit card processor were compromised.

"Upon notification by the VISA Alert and its high risk level, Platte Valley Bank made the decision and took immediate steps to block the cards affected, to prevent fraud and safeguard its cardholders. Platte Valley Bank began notifying its VISA Debit Card customers of the data breach and status of their cards. New cards will be issued upon receipt of application from those customers affected."

Forcht Bank - Kentucky's Forcht Bank has canceled more than 8,500 debit cards, and it's likely other banks will soon be taking similar steps. Forcht disabled 8,500 debit cards after learning hackers accessed data belonging to a company that processes debit card transactions from merchants. New cards will be sent to those customers in the next week to 10 days.

Editor's Note: So that's 600 + 8500 + "significant.  Assuming  significant is 90,000 cards, then Heartland only has to pay for the remainder of the the 99 million plus cards that need to be replaced...

Update:  Heartland has no plans of closing its doors, as eventually was the case with payment processor CardSystems Solutions, which itself suffered a devastating breach in 2005. "We're going to be a better company for it," a Heartland spokesman said.   (Yeah, and college cheerleaders still jump up and down with their team down 51-0, let alone 100 million to nothing.)

For those who are interested in reading more...there's a good story on the banks start of their card replacement triggered by the Heartland Breach at:  www.digitaltransactions.net