NEW YORK ? Another major American company may have put its customers at risk for Identity Theft. CitiFinancial reported Monday that data tapes containing personal financial information on 3.9 million customers were lost by UPS while in transit to a credit bureau.
The tapes contained information about CitiFinancial branch network customers in the United States as well as customers with closed accounts from CitiFinancial Retail Services. The tapes did not contain any customer information from CitiFinancial Auto, CitiFinancial Mortgage or any other Citigroup business.
CitiFinancial said it had no reason to believe that this information has been used inappropriately, nor has it received any reports of unauthorized activity.
Furthermore, there was no information on these tapes relating to customers of the CitiFinancial network operations in Canada or Puerto Rico.
“We deeply regret this incident, which occurred in spite of the enhanced security procedures we require of our couriers,? said Kevin Kessinger, Executive Vice President of Citigroup’s Global Consumer Group and President of Consumer Finance North America. ?There is little risk of the accounts being compromised because customers have already received their loans, and no additional credit may be obtained from CitiFinancial without prior approval of our customers, either by initiating a new application or by providing positive proof of identification. Beginning in July, this data will be sent electronically in encrypted form.?
But Citigroup joins MCI, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Polo Ralph Lauren Corp., and DSW Shoe Warehouse to recently disclose that personal consumer information on customers and employees was lost or stolen.
In all, millions of individuals have been affected. Most organizations have been encouraging individuals to call credit-reporting agencies and put fraud alerts on their files, though some companies have offered free credit-report monitoring services for a limited time. Citigroup is offering affected customers free credit monitoring for 90 days.
The latest breach highlights the vulnerability of corporate data-handling procedures. While some of the recent data losses have been the result of break-ins by computer hackers, the loss of computer tapes, as was the case with Bank of America and Time Warner, reveals gaps in trucking, air transport and other traditional logistical systems.
