Budgeting Babe Alert: CitiFinancial looses information on 3.9 million
Posted on June 7, 2005 4 Comments
In yet another outrageous personal data loss by a large company, CitiFinancial is missing computer tapes containing data on 3.9 million customers. This includes Social Security numbers, names and addresses, but, at small consolation, no credit card or bank account information.
Please, CitiFinancial, don’t try to comfort us. Don’t let it happen. Ever.
And quit using my SSN as my corporate identifier. I hate that! (I’ve asked customer service to change it, only to hear a big fat NO! on the other end.)
You can read the article here:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/
infotheft/2005-06-06-citifinancial-lost-data_x.htm
Apparently Citi is working to digitally encrypt data now. Wasn’t that technology available years ago? Just asking.
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4 Responses to “Budgeting Babe Alert: CitiFinancial looses information on 3.9 million”
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June 7th, 2005 @ 7:08 pm
With a Social Security number, name and address you can create new credit cards for which the identity owner knows nothing about them. That is the easiest way to steal an identity.
Money and Investing
June 8th, 2005 @ 8:57 am
As to the encryption situation, the technology is decades old. But you’re not thinking like a corporate titan – minimize costs. That means that unless customers are clamoring for you to use encryption while storing their data, and no one is losing any money (esp. not the bank), why would the corporate titans start using it. It just adds overhead when their business is about maximizing shareholder returns and, by extension, their own exit packages. You don’t get superrich by spending money, you get superrich by cutting expenses (all those employees are expendable too, didn’t ya know?).
As you can tell, I’m a cynic. That’s why when both my employer and my bank had “personal information security lapses” in the last 2 months, I just decided to put fraud alerts on all the credit reporting agencies and close out my old bank account, opening a new one and transferring the funds into it. You gotta watch out for yourself. They won’t do it for you.
June 8th, 2005 @ 12:31 pm
I work for a large institutution that uses SS#s as identifiers for thousands of members. I and at least a hundred other people have access to all of the SS#s and personal info. SS# are distributed every term on grade rools which the faculty routinely leave in open recycling boxes. It’s absolutely horrifying. Here’s another example- Professor charged with identity theft.
July 31st, 2008 @ 9:52 am
Hello. I find your blog very interesting. I have had so many troubles with financial companies. The most frustrating experience was with the Citi Financial company. When I went to http://www.pisseconsumer.com to post a complaint about the company and it turned out that I am not along. So many negative feedbacks have already been posted. Is not it a scam?