Target Should Offer Free Credit Monitoring for Impacted Customers

In case you haven't heard, Target has been the victim of a massive network breach potentially impacting all credit card customers who shopped between November 27 and December 15 of this year, including Black Friday.

Normally when this happens, organizations try to make amends with their customers, often with free credit monitoring and identity theft protection for a year.

However, Target has chosen to take a potentially more damaging route (from a PR perspective), and simply direct customers to monitor their own accounts and request a free credit report.

Now it is understandable that Target is hesitant to do so, since credit monitoring services could potentially cost between $100 and $200 per person. Since 40 million customers are affected, this means Target would need to take a loss between $4 and $8 billion. According to MarketWatch Target's yearly profit has been approx. $20 billion. This would significantly impact their bottom line - but the potential loss of customers could be even more damaging.

Target - the ball is in your court. This could potentially make or break your company. Do you want to do the right thing and provide credit protection for customers? Or do you want to risk tarnishing the Target brand forever?

For historical reference, T.J. Maxx was forced to provide credit monitoring for customers.

Note: The blog author's family is most likely included in the list of affected customers.