Data Breach at Teespring Impacts Laid-Off Providence Workers

Kevin Aherne

Teespring has become the latest company to experience a breach in their security that has compromised the private data of its employees -- and it is directly impacting Rhode Islanders. 

Rhode Island residents who lost their jobs in 2015 when the apparel brand relocated to Kentucky were dealt another blow when they received an email from their former employer.

We discovered that a Teespring employee was the victim of a phishing scam, which resulted in W2's from 2015 for our current and former employees being sent externally," says the email from Teespring's SVP Finance of Operations, Ryan Roland. "This is a scam that has impacted a number of companies, including ours, unfortunately. We are extremely sorry that this has happened."

Read the full email below

Teespring pulled out of its founding city in the Summer of 2015, eliminating 70 local jobs and relocating them to the company's production facility in Kentucky. Most of those jobs were in customer service, selling services, and graphic design positions. Both current and former employees have been affected by the data breach. 

​It feels like they are permanently sticking a dagger into us," says former Customer Service Representative, Courtney Burnside, who lost her job at Teespring in the 2015 move. "This could hurt all of us for the rest of our lives."

The data breach likely affects any employee who worked for Teespring in 2015. The company, in their email offered to pay for two years of identity theft protection and monitoring, and urged those effected to take additional action to prevent fraud. 

"They offered us 2 years of life lock. That's not enough," Burnside added. "This may be an issue for the rest of our lives. It's our social security numbers."

READ: Teespring's employee data breach email