Hackers have breached security at a clothing company's website and stolen the credit card details of an estimated 38,000 customers.
Cotton Traders said industry experts were called in as soon as the breach was discovered and insisted its website met appropriate security standards.
The company could not confirm how many of its customers were targeted in the January attack, but said the figure of 38,000 was "widely inaccurate".
In a statement, it said: "In January 2008 we identified a security issue.
"We immediately brought in industry security experts to resolve the problem.
"We can confirm that our customer credit card data is encrypted on our website but if any of our customers have been a victim of fraud, they should contact their card issuer."
Cotton Traders was founded in 1987 by two former England rugby union captains, Fran Cotton and Steve Smith.
It began by selling rugby shirts from a single room in Altrincham and grew into a £50 million business with more than 700 employees in the UK, sending out over 100,000 parcels a month.
There are now more than two million customers on the company's database.
The statement continued: "We can confirm that the figure of 38,000 as reported by BBC is widely inaccurate and we would like to reassure all our customers that their data is secure and that the Cotton Traders website meets all leading industry security standards."
