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stores not affected by URM cyber-attack
Contrary to the implication in a front page story in last week’s Idaho County Free Press, Riener’s Grocery was not one of those stores affected by the cyber-attack against URM of Spokane’s payment-processing system for credit and debit cards. As stated in a URM press release Tuesday, “cards used through a separate stand-beside or dial-up system (like Riener’s) from November 25 through December 2 were not affected.” Riener’s does use URM as their wholesale supplier but does NOT use their payment processing service. Riener’s Grocery’s credit card processing system is a dial-up system that dials directly to the bank. Owner Gary Riener was understandably upset with the Free Press article. He said Monday that it cost them quite a bit of business. His brother Joe Riener, who takes care of the payment system, sent the letter below to the Free Press. Cottonwood Foods was unaffected by the cyber-attack as well as they are not affiliated in any way with URM. They use Associated Grocers out of Salt Lake City as their wholesale supplier. Following is the text of Joe Riener’s letter: David Rauzi, Editor Idaho County Free Press Dave, Your headline article about the URM credit card situation, on page one of the Idaho County Free Press released November 27, 2013 contained damaging misinformation when you included Riener's Grocery in the list of affected businesses. United Retail Markets (URM) offers many services to its member stores including warehouse supply and financial service applications. Each member store chooses the services they want to use. Riener's Grocery uses the URM warehouse supply only. Riener's never used URM credit card software. The credit card processing system at Riener's Grocery uses a secure direct connection to a financial institution and does not send any customer data to a network server or the Internet. For five decades Riener's Grocery provided quality groceries at competitive prices and outstanding customer service, including protecting our customer's personal infor-mation, privacy, and confiden-tiality when making credit or debit card purchases. I want to emphasize, credit cards are safe to use at Riener's Grocery. Our Cottonwood based business has never had a compromise of credit card data. Please print a correction in next week's Idaho County Free Press, and I courtesy copied this letter to the editors of other local media sources to quickly reassure the public that Riener's Grocery takes their financial information security very seriously and was misrepresented in your article. Sincerely yours, Joe Riener Information Systems, Riener’s Grocery |
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