Congressman Pittenger says criminals put $4,000 in charges on his credit card

Rep. Robert Pittenger told a House Financial Services Committee Wednesday that criminals racked up $4,000 in fraudulent charges on his credit card.

Pittenger made the disclosure during a hearing on last year’s customer data breaches.

“My wife found out two days ago. There was a charge that didn’t make sense to anybody,” Pittenger said in an interview with the Observer Wednesday afternoon. The charges date to last month, he said.

Pittenger said the charges originated overseas. They were made to what appeared to be a vitamin company, he said.

Wednesday’s hearing followed major breaches last year at retailers, including Target and Neiman Marcus.

In more fallout from the Target breach breach, on Wednesday the Minneapolis-based retailer said its chief information officer is stepping down.

Pittenger serves on the House Financial Services Committee. He said it’s important to figure out ways to prevent future breaches.

“Clearly, it’s a problem because we can’t have a loss of confidence in consumers as a result of these data breaches,” he said. “We have to have confidence in the payments systems”

This story was originally published March 5, 2014 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Congressman Pittenger says criminals put $4,000 in charges on his credit card."