Employee Initiative
May 23rd, 2005 at 8:35 pm by Susie
Isn’t this special? I was wondering when they’d get around to hitting my bank:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - More than 100,000 customers of Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp. have been notified that their financial records may have been stolen by bank employees and sold to collection agencies.
So far, Bank of America has alerted about 60,000 customers whose names were included on computer disks discovered by police, bank spokeswoman Alex Liftman said Monday.
A couple of weeks ago (maybe more, time flies) I heard that Commerce Bank had the same problem and would be notifying the affected customers shortly. That’s my bank, but I never heard anything. It’s actually amazing this type of thing doesn’t happen more often. Maybe I ought to look into storing my money under my mattress after all.
What actual use do collection agencies have for the stolen data?
They’re looking for current addresses.
Two words: Credit Union. You may not be any more secure, but at least you won’t be paying top dollar to have your stuff ripped off.
Another reason collection agencies desire the allegedly purloined information is so that they can locate debtor’s assets. Most credit card companies now have written arbitration agreements into their credit card agreements to bypass the use of the courts to enforce their agreement. They now can enforce their agreements in their arbitration departments. Some of them are starting alternative dispute resolution companies and contracting with them to enforce their agreements. Once they get their ‘judgments’ in arbitration they assign the ‘judgments’ to collection agencies who then start looking for assets to seize.