|
|
| One of the nations largest mortgage lenders last month suffered its third incident during the past year of stolen computers — leaving some of its many borrowers vulnerable to identity theft.
The laptops disappeared mid-month October from the Atlanta office of Regulus Integrated Solutions, which provides loan statements for Wells Fargo mortgage and student-loan borrowers. The computers contained customers’ personal information such as names, addresses, social security numbers, and other general account information specific to student loan or mortgage account numbers. However, no passwords or personal-identification numbers were associated with the incident, bank spokesman Kevin Waetke told MortgageDaily.com. “Certainly, Wells Fargo regrets that the situation occurred and we apologize,” the spokesman said. “We’re notifying our customers simply to take precautionary steps to reduce any potential risk the other customers may face as a result of having the laptops be removed from the facility where they were secured.” The San Francisco-based mortgage behemoth began notifying the impacted customers last week that their information was stolen and that Wells “would be extending free identity protection service to them and monitor their accounts for a period of 12 months,” he added. Wells said no misuses of the information have been reported and wanted to “reassure our customers that we are purely taking these precautionary steps to reduce the risks.” Investigation of the burglary is ongoing by Atlanta police, according to the spokesman, and Wells is interested in reclaiming the lost computers. Waetke said the computers contained information on “a small percentage” of the bank’s customers, but did not disclose the number of consumers who may be affected by the stolen information. Wells Fargo currently has 4.9 million mortgage customers. Wells Fargo has recently been a target of computer theft two other times; last November and in February. Reportedly, no misuses of the stolen information have been known. Another company affected by such an incident earlier this year was National Mortgage of Boise, Idaho, which had a computer with names of about 200 customers taken from the company’s office. The Federal Trade Commission recently released the results of a survey showing 27.3 million Americans have been victims of identity theft in the last five years, of which 9.9 million people were victims in the last year alone. |
Coco Salazar is an assistant editor and staff writer for MortgageDaily.com. email: [email protected]
