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September 23, 2014 - Recently, TripAdvisor has been running a set of TV ads the use humor to show consumers how they will be better off by using the company's services when planning their next trip. But as many as 1.4 million consumers who used were registered with TripAdvisor's Viator service are more likely to be cursing those ads than laughing at them. That's because the company has announced a massive data breach of Viator that includes credit and debit card information.
The data breach includes name and email information on 1.4 million registered Viator users. The company also believes that includes credit and debit card information on 880,000 of those users.
The company discovered the breach when its credit card processor notified them that unauthorized charges had started showing up on a number of credit cards that had been used to make purchases on Viator. That notification was received on September 2nd. The company notified law enforcement agencies of the potential breach and has since begun to notify affected users.
The credit and debit card information which was breached is believed to include card numbers, expiration date, cardholder name, bill address and email address. At present, the company doesn't know who is behind the breach or how long it went undetected.
Anyone who has made a purchase on the Viator website should closely monitor their credit and debit card statements for unauthorized charges. Additionally, it would be advisable for users to contact their credit or debit card issuers and have new cards with new numbers issues. TripAdvisor is also advising Viator users to reset their passwords.
The company is offering its US consumers 1 year of free credit monitoring services. Unfortunately, credit monitoring will only notify you of fraudulent activity after it has taken place. Consumers would be better served by contacting the credit bureaus and having a fraud alert placed on their credit file, or by freezing their credit file.
byJim Malmberg
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Fraud and Scams 
