Have I not been saying for years that when it comes to data breaches and identity theft, it’s not the immediate losses you have to worry about but the subsequent lawsuits? Not long after retailer TJ Maxx announced the extent of its recent data breach losses the lawsuits began to emerge and many more are possible.

And now we learn that the Texas Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against RadioShack, under the Identity Theft Enforcement and Protection Act enacted a couple of years ago, after it was discovered that RadioShack employees dumped thousands of customer records in a dumpster behind a store in Corpus Christi.

The dumping was believed to have been made around March 21^st and may have included customer credit card information, social security numbers, home addresses and telephone numbers. Some of the customer records recovered went back as far as 1998 and included full credit card numbers despite rules prohibiting the retention of complete customer credit card numbers.

One receipt I have seen included everything a thief would need including the customer’s full name, home address, telephone numbers, credit card number, expiry date, and authorization number.

According to the store it was a once off mistake and while the company claims to have a shredding service in place, for some reason employees at this store didn’t get the memo.

The fines alone could run into millions because under the Business and Commerce Code RadioShack may be fined $500 for each abandoned record in additional to other larger fines.

Late last year RadioShack announced that it was planning to offer online computer classes to its customer. Maybe it’s time the company considered offering online identity theft prevention classes to its employees.