Stolen Info by Countrywide Employee!

[OneHungryChicken]

Well today I get a letter letting me know that a ex-employee of Countrywide may have stole my information and sold it to a 3rd party. I guess I have some ammo in the loan mod or getting my loan approved for the new bogus Bill.

[Dan Bailey]

One hungry,
I believe that was in the news awhile back...there were thousands of peoples info stolen.

[faith]

Originally Posted by OneHungryChicken

Well today I get a letter letting me know that a ex-employee of Countrywide may have stole my information and sold it to a 3rd party. I guess I have some ammo in the loan mod or getting my loan approved for the new bogus Bill.

***, Moe, Professor Shays, OneHungryChicken,
I just received my mail today from Countrywide Home Loans dated Sept 6 2008 informing all Countrywide Home Loans customers that they recently became aware that a CW Employee(now former) may have sold unauthorized personal information about us to a third party. Based on a joint investigation conducted by CW and law enforcement authorities, it was determined that the customer information involved in this incident ncluded names, address, ssn, mortgage loan number and various other loan and application information.

CW went on to say that they regret this incident and apolozied for any inconvenience and they have terminated that employee.

My question to Professor Shays, can we sue CW and that employee? Can this employee go to jail? Why can't CW nd DA prosecuted this guy up to the maximum extent of the law? Is there any law or other remedies we can do to put this guy in jail forever?


Your input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Faith

[OneHungryChicken]

Hi Faith it wasnt all of the customers but 15k of them. The person is being prosecuted but they wont give this bastards name out!

[faith]

Originally Posted by OneHungryChicken

Hi Faith it wasnt all of the customers but 15k of them. The person is being prosecuted but they wont give this bastards name out!

Hi OneHungryChicken,
How come my letter did not say 15k. and did not say they have prosecuted this employee. My letter said they have terminated the individuals access to customer information and he is no longer employed by Countrywide Home Loans.

I am very angry at this point, where is his heart? How can someone do such an evil act like him, where homeownerss is not only a VICTIM of Countrywide but also a VICTIM of their employee's Evil action. Double jeopardy, like father(Countrywide Home Loans) like son(employee), this is sad, really very sad. But I declare that there is no Weapon that is formed against me and the rest of us shall prosper and every tongue that shall rise up in judgment God shall condemn. This person is messing around the wrong person. If God be for me(us) who can be against me(us).

I am very angry but I have to forgive him and May God have mercy on his soul.

Thanks for sharing.

Faith

[OneHungryChicken]

Yeah im in the same boat at the "Level of Pissed-offness" that you are. My letter said the same thing yours did rered it it didnt say all custmers were compromised. I found out about the 15k number and everything else by being on the phone with Countrywide for 3 stinking hours yesterday The only legal recourse we could do if we could find out if our info was indeed compromised.

[faith]

Originally Posted by OneHungryChicken

Yeah im in the same boat at the "Level of Pissed-offness" that you are. My letter said the same thing yours did rered it it didnt say all custmers were compromised. I found out about the 15k number and everything else by being on the phone with Countrywide for 3 stinking hours yesterday The only legal recourse we could do if we could find out if our info was indeed compromised.

OneHungryChicken,
I just emailed the person that sent us the letter today and told her that we have been a victim of CW twice, one from them CW and one from this evil employee, double jeopardy. I asked her what is CW is doing to this person and if the DA and CW is really doing something to put this evil man in jail.
if you want to email her :

Sheila_Zuckerman@countrywide.com



Thanks,
Faith

[faith]

OneHungryChicken,
Did you log on to Countrywide Home Loans complimentary credit monitoring services as what they said in their letter, that it's free. They even gave me a borrower activation code but I don't know if I can trust them. because Countrywide's trusworthiness is nada, caput, wala, which all means zero.

Let me just take a 1 hour break to calm me down and ask the Lord to help me how to handle this case.

Thanks.


Faith

[Moe Bedard]

This person is in jail...................and named............



Countrywide insider stole mortgage applicants' data, FBI says
The former employee and a suspected accomplice are arrested. As many as 2 million customers' information was allegedly targeted.
By E. Scott Reckard and Joseph Menn
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

August 2, 2008

The FBI on Friday arrested a former Countrywide Financial Corp. employee and another man in an alleged scheme to steal and sell sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, of as many as 2 million mortgage applicants.

The breach in security, which occurred over a two-year period though July, was one of the largest in years, experts said.

The insider was identified as Rene L. Rebollo Jr., 36, who had worked as a senior financial analyst at Full Spectrum Lending, Countrywide's subprime lending division. He was arrested at his home in Pasadena and charged with unauthorized access to a financial institution's computers.

Authorities also arrested Wahid Siddiqi, 25, at his home in Thousand Oaks. Authorities alleged that he was a reseller of Countrywide data.

"Some, perhaps most, and possibly all the names were being sold to people in the mortgage industry to make new pitches," U.S. attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek said.

Rebollo's attorney, Michael V. Severo of Los Angeles, could not be reached for comment. Rebollo appeared in court Friday afternoon and was released on $80,000 bond.

Siddiqi was being held on a fraud charge pending a court appearance Monday, and prosecutors did not know whether he had a lawyer.

In an affidavit filed in federal court, the FBI said Rebollo had voluntarily described the scheme. Rebollo said he would charge $400 or $500 for batches of thousands of "leads" -- personal and account information that presumably would help outside loan agents solicit new mortgages from the Countrywide applicants, some of whom had been denied loans by the Calabasas company.

Authorities said they didn't know whether any of the information had been used for outright fraud, such as identity theft.

Rebollo would copy information on about 20,000 customers at a time on Sunday nights by using a Full Spectrum computer that did not have the same security features that other machines in the office had, according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Richard P. Ryan.

At that rate, the U.S. attorney's office said, Rebollo would have compromised up to 2 million customer profiles for about 2.5 cents each -- an astonishingly small amount considering the importance of the material. Mortgage leads are among the most expensive for sale because of the potential payoffs to intermediaries when loans are made.

In April, online mortgage broker LendingTree Inc. filed a suit claiming that two of its former employees gave prospective brokers unauthorized access to information on potentially millions of clients. The FBI is investigating that case as well, but authorities said the two were unrelated.

Social Security numbers alone generally fetch dollars, not pennies, since they can be used to open new bank accounts.

"It's the potential for new-account fraud that arises when Social Security accounts are compromised," said Beth Givens, director of the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "That's the most serious kind of financial identity theft," because large amounts can be involved and the fraud is more difficult to detect than it is on preexisting accounts.

"This guy obviously didn't do his homework. He doesn't know the value of these on the black market," she said.

Givens said the breach was among the 10 largest involving sensitive information in the last 18 months.

A January 2007 breach at retailer T.J. Maxx exposed 45 million credit card numbers. Six months later, Certegy Check Services Inc. lost information on 8 million accounts to an insider. In March, the Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain reported the theft of data on more than 4 million accounts.

In the most recent case, Countrywide detected the breach and alerted federal authorities, according to Suzy Martin, a spokeswoman for the company, which was acquired by Bank of America on July 1.

On July 15, Rebollo voluntarily turned over to the FBI a flash drive he used to download the information and a personal computer, according to Ryan. The agent said in his affidavit that he pulled up about 40 spreadsheets at random from the flash drive.

"I observed large quantities of names associated with several columns of numeric data," Ryan wrote. "These columns contained telephone numbers, addresses and Social Security account numbers. Each spreadsheet contained several thousand lines of data."

Rebollo's attorney later called to say Rebollo had revoked permission for the FBI to search the drive and computer, and the searches stopped "pending further discussions regarding Rebollo's potential cooperation in the investigation," Ryan said.

A criminal complaint against Rebollo said that he earned about $65,000 a year at Countrywide and had opened a personal bank account for holding what he estimated to be up to $70,000 in proceeds from Countrywide data sales.

The complaint said Siddiqi sold computer discs containing data on Countrywide customers to a witness working for the FBI, taking in $4,000 for about 38,000 customer profiles.

During the housing boom, Countrywide was the nation's largest mortgage lender and competed in all segments of the home-loan business, including subprime loans for high-risk borrowers. Subprime lenders aggressively courted these borrowers, hoping to persuade them to refinance their mortgages and replace them with new loans that featured low initial "teaser" interest rates.

[faith]

***,
Thank you so much for that information, it really helped me to calm down.

As always God bless you.


Faith

[frazzledma25]

Wow..thanks for the info ***..its like the wild west out there.....I posted under my thread before seeing this post!

[kburgin]

Chicken,

Thanks for the information. This is important as it reminds all of us to be careful with our credit and are bank choices. Hopefully you can use that as great leverage to obtain the best possible modification. Let us know how it goes . Remember Persistance Breaks Resistance.

[OneHungryChicken]

Originally Posted by faith

OneHungryChicken,
Did you log on to Countrywide Home Loans complimentary credit monitoring services as what they said in their letter, that it's free. They even gave me a borrower activation code but I don't know if I can trust them. because Countrywide's trusworthiness is nada, caput, wala, which all means zero.

Let me just take a 1 hour break to calm me down and ask the Lord to help me how to handle this case.

Thanks.


Faith

I havent done so but im going to do it. it will also give an imediate credit report so we can scope things out.

[OneHungryChicken]

Originally Posted by *** Damiano

This person is in jail...................and named............



Countrywide insider stole mortgage applicants' data, FBI says
The former employee and a suspected accomplice are arrested. As many as 2 million customers' information was allegedly targeted.
By E. Scott Reckard and Joseph Menn
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

August 2, 2008

The FBI on Friday arrested a former Countrywide Financial Corp. employee and another man in an alleged scheme to steal and sell sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, of as many as 2 million mortgage applicants.

The breach in security, which occurred over a two-year period though July, was one of the largest in years, experts said.

The insider was identified as Rene L. Rebollo Jr., 36, who had worked as a senior financial analyst at Full Spectrum Lending, Countrywide's subprime lending division. He was arrested at his home in Pasadena and charged with unauthorized access to a financial institution's computers.

Authorities also arrested Wahid Siddiqi, 25, at his home in Thousand Oaks. Authorities alleged that he was a reseller of Countrywide data.

"Some, perhaps most, and possibly all the names were being sold to people in the mortgage industry to make new pitches," U.S. attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek said.

Rebollo's attorney, Michael V. Severo of Los Angeles, could not be reached for comment. Rebollo appeared in court Friday afternoon and was released on $80,000 bond.

Siddiqi was being held on a fraud charge pending a court appearance Monday, and prosecutors did not know whether he had a lawyer.

In an affidavit filed in federal court, the FBI said Rebollo had voluntarily described the scheme. Rebollo said he would charge $400 or $500 for batches of thousands of "leads" -- personal and account information that presumably would help outside loan agents solicit new mortgages from the Countrywide applicants, some of whom had been denied loans by the Calabasas company.

Authorities said they didn't know whether any of the information had been used for outright fraud, such as identity theft.

Rebollo would copy information on about 20,000 customers at a time on Sunday nights by using a Full Spectrum computer that did not have the same security features that other machines in the office had, according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Richard P. Ryan.

At that rate, the U.S. attorney's office said, Rebollo would have compromised up to 2 million customer profiles for about 2.5 cents each -- an astonishingly small amount considering the importance of the material. Mortgage leads are among the most expensive for sale because of the potential payoffs to intermediaries when loans are made.

In April, online mortgage broker LendingTree Inc. filed a suit claiming that two of its former employees gave prospective brokers unauthorized access to information on potentially millions of clients. The FBI is investigating that case as well, but authorities said the two were unrelated.

Social Security numbers alone generally fetch dollars, not pennies, since they can be used to open new bank accounts.

"It's the potential for new-account fraud that arises when Social Security accounts are compromised," said Beth Givens, director of the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "That's the most serious kind of financial identity theft," because large amounts can be involved and the fraud is more difficult to detect than it is on preexisting accounts.

"This guy obviously didn't do his homework. He doesn't know the value of these on the black market," she said.

Givens said the breach was among the 10 largest involving sensitive information in the last 18 months.

A January 2007 breach at retailer T.J. Maxx exposed 45 million credit card numbers. Six months later, Certegy Check Services Inc. lost information on 8 million accounts to an insider. In March, the Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain reported the theft of data on more than 4 million accounts.

In the most recent case, Countrywide detected the breach and alerted federal authorities, according to Suzy Martin, a spokeswoman for the company, which was acquired by Bank of America on July 1.

On July 15, Rebollo voluntarily turned over to the FBI a flash drive he used to download the information and a personal computer, according to Ryan. The agent said in his affidavit that he pulled up about 40 spreadsheets at random from the flash drive.

"I observed large quantities of names associated with several columns of numeric data," Ryan wrote. "These columns contained telephone numbers, addresses and Social Security account numbers. Each spreadsheet contained several thousand lines of data."

Rebollo's attorney later called to say Rebollo had revoked permission for the FBI to search the drive and computer, and the searches stopped "pending further discussions regarding Rebollo's potential cooperation in the investigation," Ryan said.

A criminal complaint against Rebollo said that he earned about $65,000 a year at Countrywide and had opened a personal bank account for holding what he estimated to be up to $70,000 in proceeds from Countrywide data sales.

The complaint said Siddiqi sold computer discs containing data on Countrywide customers to a witness working for the FBI, taking in $4,000 for about 38,000 customer profiles.

During the housing boom, Countrywide was the nation's largest mortgage lender and competed in all segments of the home-loan business, including subprime loans for high-risk borrowers. Subprime lenders aggressively courted these borrowers, hoping to persuade them to refinance their mortgages and replace them with new loans that featured low initial "teaser" interest rates.

It took that long to alert customers, not good for them if my onfo has been breeched.

[OneHungryChicken]

I tried to register for the service and it could not verify who I am so its going to be an additional week before I get the offline confirmation. The only good news is the servce is offered through Experian which makes me feel a little more secure. The flip side is the service is only offered for 2 years and if our info has been compromised thats not long enough since our SS#'s dont expire!

[lifeinmn]

What bothers me is that my husband and I are both on the loan but the Countrywide is only giving him the 2 years of credit monitoring. I called them 2x and they will not give it to me. Why?? I am sure my acct was compromised if the a-hole stole my husbands info from our account.

[Moe Bedard]

You can also call the three credit bureaus and request that they put a Fraud Alert on your credit, it stays in place for 6 months at a time and then you would have to redo it...............this would mean that if anyone tries to use your information to obtain credit, they will notify you immediately to see if it is you that is applying for the credit or someone else using your info..........
It will at least be able to put some protection in place on your credit too.........

[OneHungryChicken]

I just got hit with Stinking Fraud!

[faith]

Originally Posted by OneHungryChicken

I just got hit with Stinking Fraud!

Hungrychicken,
How did you find out? Did you go to the website where CW referred you to enroll?


Faith

[OneHungryChicken]

The enrollment info is on the letter that the affected got. Tomight I discovered many fraudulent charges on a CC. UUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH!

[jannob]

We received one of these Friday. Isn't that nice.

[OneHungryChicken]

Anyone have any idea of where I go from here?

[faith]

Originally Posted by OneHungryChicken

Anyone have any idea of where I go from here?

OneHungryChicken,
Go to your police or sheriff department and file a police report and ask them to give you a copy of the police report. Then send a copy of Countrywide Home Loans notice, the copy of the police report to your bank, this will help you a lot in disputing those charges. File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and call them at 1-877-438-4338 go to their website: ftc.gov/idtheft

Make sure you keep copy of everything you've sent your credit card bank and the police report and also a copy of the complaint you have filed with the Federal Trade Commission.

I am sorry that we all going through this, I have written a letter to President Bush and told him the homeowners are already victims of Countrywide due to their deceptive and predatory lending practices, but we became a victim of Countrywide again because of their two employees who stole our confidential information for financial gain. But you know what, they will all face God in judgment and the way of the wicked will perish.

Take care of yourself, peace be with you. God bless you.



Faith

[OneHungryChicken]

I have already disputed the charges so no problem there. Im just wondering if I need to get an attorney to sue Countrywide?

[faith]

Originally Posted by OneHungryChicken

I have already disputed the charges so no problem there. Im just wondering if I need to get an attorney to sue Countrywide?

OneHungryChicken,
In fairness, this isn't anyone's fault except the two employees who stole the information. Unfortunately, people who works with companies involving ssn and other confidential information are tempted to make money and these 2 helped themselves to steal CW customers information for financial gain. ID theft is everywhere and not everyone is honest

Make sure to read the wording in the terms and conditions that comes with signing up for free fraud alert through Equifax that Countrywide has arranged for everyone. I don’t know if I can trust CW ever again. CW said that it was only the primary account person involved in this mess.

I have put a freeze on my account about 4 years ago permanently.. But I have not on my husband’s. I think I am going to put a freeze on his account. The only problem when you put a freeze on your account, if you apply for an apartment or any credit, the landlord or the creditor can not access your account and they will ask you to call Equifax, Experian and TRW to unfreeze your account so they can access it. That’s what I was told when I’ve applied for the cable connections. I’ve used my credit card and charged for it.

Hope everything will be fine with you.


Faith