The co-owner of Tino's restaurant, Jeff Nouri, spoke to KVUE at his North Austin restaurant. He says credit cards at all Tino's restaurants are now processed through a phone line rather a computer which sent those transactions over the Internet.
"It hurts us bad," said Nouri.
Nouri says he is devastated that many of his customers have become the victims of credit and debit card fraud.
"That somebody did that to my business and my customers," said Nouri.
Tino's owners have been receiving cell phone messages.
"Someone just charged over $1,000 in fraudulent charges to my account last night," said Rachel Durkin-Drga many calls Tino's has received.
Rachel Durkin-Drga says she ate at the South Austin Tino's back in May. Rachel Durkin-Drga says she ate at Tino's Tuesday night, and after watching our report on Wednesday, she went on-line to check her bank statement.
"All told, it was over $1,100 worth of charges," said Durkin-Drga.
Austin police became aware of the matter several seeks ago and say so far their investigation reveals Tino's may be a victim as well.
"The compromise was not at the restaurant itself but somewhere in the network, so it was a network breach," said Sgt. Matthew Green, with the APD Financial Crimes Unit.
Sgt. Greer did not say that Heartland was at fault. He did not rule out the possibility that their security system may have been breached.
Heartland issued a statement denying any involvement in the Tino's breach, saying the problems, "clearly point to a localized intrusion initiated within the stores, either in their point-of-sale system or as a result of other fraud…the company is unaware of any broader issue."
"I think that's very irresponsible of them to issue a statement like that," said Nouri.
Nouri says because all the Tino's restaurants employ a cafeteria style format, it is impossible for his employees to be involved because they literally only have access to the credit card for about five seconds.
Tino's customers we talked to say it is a crime that can happen anywhere.
"I think it's really like a wake up call for other restaurants how easily those numbers can be pilfered or stolen," said Gary Foessett.
On its website, Heartland claims it is the exclusive provider of card processing services for the National Restaurant Association. So there's a good chance that at some point your credit or debit card has been processed through Heartland.
