LITCHFIELD, Mich.–American 1 Credit Union said it has moved to block—at least temporarily—usage of members’ credit and debit cards at Wendy’s restaurant locations.
The move follows a breach at the fast food chain that the credit union said it believes has not yet been resolved.
“While Wendy’s has reported that the malware responsible for the cyberattacks has been disabled at all franchise locations affected by the data breach, community members have still been reporting fraudulent activity on their accounts, even after reissuance of their debit or credit card,” the credit union said in a statement on its website. “Therefore, in order to protect member accounts, the credit union made the decision to decline all credit and debit card transactions at any Wendy’s location until further notice.”
In its statement American 1 said its total losses to date due to the Wendy’s cyberattack are equal to the losses taken with the Home Depot data breach in 2014, and “continue to grow. During the Home Depot cyberattacks, over 4,200 cards were reissued. Of the stolen funds returned to members’ accounts, only 11% of that amount was covered by insurance, with American 1 paying for the remaining 89% of losses out of pocket.”
In a statement as part of the website posting, CEO David Plunkett told members, “When malicious cyberattacks like the recent attack on Wendy’s occur, there are many victims. Not only are the cardholders’ assets put at risk, but the financial institutions that issued the cards are left to foot the bill of any resulting theft – not wanting their members to suffer from an unfortunate event that was neither party’s fault. It’s a no-win situation.”
American 1 said that of the 47,000 cards it has in circulation, more than 18,000 have been compromised in the recent Wendy’s cyberattacks. It stated the amount of stolen money American 1 has already returned to its members is just shy of the amount returned in the Home Depot cyberattacks with additional disputes being resolved daily.
“Until we are confident that our members’ cards are no longer at risk when used at Wendy’s, we will continue declining the transactions,” Puckett said. “As their local credit union, the best interest of our members is our number-one priority.”