Synchrony Financial said a message was erroneously sent to customers about an Amazon.com card and that a data breach had not occurred, according to a report by Reuters.
On Monday (Nov. 26), a notification was sent to some customers saying “a trial deposit has been successfully made to your Amazon credit builder.” Synchrony said it was a mistake.
“We have confirmed none of your personal data was compromised,” the financial services company said in an email to customers.
The company has a partnership with Amazon in which it lends to customers with low credit scores.
In other Amazon news, the eCommerce giant is opening a store on the Chinese site Pinduoduo.
Amazon closed its marketplace in China in July after realizing it could not compete with rivals like Alibaba’s Tmall marketplace and JD.com.
Although Alibaba and JD.com usually lead China’s eCommerce market, the four-year-old Pinduoduo is “popular with China’s lower-tier city residents” and attracts customers with offers of discounts and deals, per reports. After posting a wider-than-expected quarterly loss, Pinduoduo suffered an $11 billion slump in value last week, pointing to the difficulty of competing against rivals with big subsidies.
Amazon has also been under fire for privacy issues related to its data practices regarding the Ring video doorbell. Five senators wrote a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, asking him to explain how security surveillance company Ring uses people’s data and video.
Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Chris Coons of Delaware and Gary Peters of Michigan sent a letter asking whether the technology could be accessed by foreign entities or whether it posed a risk to national security. “Personal data can be exploited by foreign intelligence services to amplify the impact of espionage and influence operations,” the letter said.
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