Sports Warehouse, Other “Warehouses” Data Breach Class Action

The data breach at issue in this class action involved four online sporting-gear businesses: Sports Warehouse (which does business as Tennis Warehouse), Running Warehouse, LLC, Wilderness Sports Warehouse (which does business as Tackle Warehouse), and Skate Warehouse, LLC. The complaint alleges that the systems and information were “inadequately protected” and that hackers accessed the personally identifiable information (PII) of 1.8 million people.

A class and a subclass have been defined for this action:

• The Nationwide Class is all natural persons living in the US whose PII was exposed in the data breach that happened in October 2021, including all US residents who were sent a notice of the data breach.
• The Oregon Subclass is all natural persons living in Oregon whose PII was exposed in the data breach that happened in October 2021, including all US residents who were sent a notice of the data breach.

According to the complaint, unauthorized persons got into the systems on October 1, 2021 and were able to steal full names, numbers for financial accounts, credit card numbers with CVVs, and website login information.

The companies did not detect the breach until October 15, 2021, the complaint alleges, did not find out until November 6 that payment card information had been stolen, and did not tell the victims that their information had been stolen until December 16, two and a half months after the event.

The complaint alleges that the companies bear responsibility for the cyberattack because of their failings in a number of areas:

• Their “failing to take adequate and reasonable measures to ensure that their customer data was protected[.]”
• Their “failing to take available steps to prevent and stop the Data Breach[.]”
• Their “failing to take adequate measures to detect the Data Breach[.]”
• Their “failing to provide timely notice of the Data Breach, and enabling the actors to execute the Data Breach and steal” the PII.

The victims of the data breach have had to spend their time and money to mitigate the risks posed by the exposure of their information, the complaint claims, and have been put “at imminent and impending risk of identity theft.”

The complaint alleges that the companies were aware of the need for protection of PII, particularly in light of the many data breaches reported in recent years at well-known companies like Chipotle, Dairy Queen, Forever 21, Home Depot, Kmart, Lord & Taylor, Target, and many others.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought many cases against companies that suffered data breaches, the complaint claims, alleging that they “engage in unfair or deceptive practices involving inadequate protection of consumers’ personal data…” Recent cases include actions against Uber, Venmo, and VTech Electronics.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Privacy
Tags: Exposing Private Information, Exposure to cyber crime, Your Privacy