Target to close Chandler, AZ store

[arizonaguy]

Source: http://www.azcentral.com/business/arizo ... #protected

Target to close Chandler store

Thu Jan 23, 2014 10:34 AM
Target will close its Chandler store at the close of business on February 1.

The store, located at 2150 N. Arizona Avenue, opened in 1986 and is being closed after a review of its financial performance and potential.

Employees of the store are being offered the option of transferring to nearby Target stores

[Super S]

I wouldn't be surprised to see a few more scattered Target closings. There are a few locations that do not seem to be doing well in areas where the economy has been slow to recover, and the recent credit card breach has not helped things any.

[Alpha8472]

There is a Walmart Supercenter less than a mile away from this Target. There are also 2 other Walmart Supercenters in the same street to the north and the south just over a mile away. This area is dominated by Walmart stores and the Target store is at a disadvantage.

The credit card breach has affected Target quite a bit more than what they expected. I have seen local Walmart stores with even bigger crowds and the local Target stores are looking more empty than ever. People spend less when they use cash. Credit cards allow people to spend like crazy and not worry about having enough cash. If you have to pay cash, you always seem to run out of cash and end up having to discard items that you wanted to buy. It will take years for people to trust Target again and we will probably see even more waves of Target closures.

[wnetmacman]

Target is usually far more deliberate than any other retailer about store closings; they will run a store until it literally hasn't made any money in years. I doubt the data breach has anything to do with this closure. It's too soon. And you'd see a large wave of closings or store sales. We haven't seen that yet; Target hasn't even disclosed how this hit their bottom line.

I have, however, seen a DECIDED drop in traffic at our local stores here. Target did not handle this well. Two days of 10% off just doesn't cut it when millions of people had to endure debit card issues. I spent several hours on the phone myself trying to straighten everything out.

[storewanderer]

To add insult to the injury, it appears anyone who contacted Target's Guest Service department also was party to this data breach. I, from a couple email addresses, once over six years ago, and once about two years ago, emailed them complaints on store issues. I had completely forgotten I had any such communication with Target. But I got emails explaining that they had lost my personal information and were going to offer me free credit monitoring. What is this? I never gave them ANY personal information other than my e-mail address. So I am not concerned. But, I can see how some people may get concerned. And the people who had to get their debit cards reissued, I expect, are livid. Then I searched back through my email and found the old canned auto-reply replies they sent me to respond to the two complaints, which I had completely forgotten about.

[BillyGr]

To add insult to the injury, it appears anyone who contacted Target's Guest Service department also was party to this data breach. I, from a couple email addresses, once over six years ago, and once about two years ago, emailed them complaints on store issues. I had completely forgotten I had any such communication with Target. But I got emails explaining that they had lost my personal information and were going to offer me free credit monitoring. What is this? I never gave them ANY personal information other than my e-mail address. So I am not concerned. But, I can see how some people may get concerned. And the people who had to get their debit cards reissued, I expect, are livid. Then I searched back through my email and found the old canned auto-reply replies they sent me to respond to the two complaints, which I had completely forgotten about.

Sounds like maybe they just decided to be overly cautious and send that to anyone they had contact info for (not sure that someone could do much to anything only having your email, since you didn't give them other info).

Of course, at this point while most are afraid to use cards there, it's probably the best place to use one, as they are (at least one would hope) going to be much more carefully monitoring it to prevent a repeat, which would cause far more harm to them.

[Alpha8472]

However, the damage is done. Anyone's card that was used at Target during that period of time has had their card number stolen. If anyone has not canceled their cards, they are in danger. The best course of action is to cancel all of the cards that you used at Target during that time and get new ones.

I wouldn't bet on Target being totally secure. Lightning can strike twice and a second breach would really kill business at Target.

Target did say that other information from their computer systems was also hacked. Names, addresses, emails, phone number, and other information stored on Target computer systems were stolen as well. It turns out Target had very weak security not only for payment card information, but also for databases of addresses, telephone numbers, emails, etc. Have you signed up for the Target emails? Have you taken a Target store receipt survey and entered your address and phone number for the chance to win a free gift card? Your information was also stolen. Did you return an item to Target and did the employee swipe your driver's license for the refund? Yes, that was stolen too.

Target was careless with security on many levels and much more customer information was stolen than they first admitted to.