ABN AMRO announces tapes lost by DHL
By MortgageDaily.com staff
12/16/2005

The personal data of about 2 million ABN AMRO Mortgage Group Inc. borrowers was lost by an overnight courier.

A computer tape containing the names, account information and social security numbers of approximately 2 million residential mortgage customers was lost while being transported by DHL, the U.S. subsidiary of Amsterdam-based ABN AMRO Bank said in an announcement today. The tapes were lost on Nov. 18. while on their way from a Chicago data center to an Experian credit bureau facility north of Dallas.

The company said it has notified law enforcement officials, the Comptroller of Currency and the Federal Reserve Board.

"Although we have no reason at this time to believe this information has been misused, we deeply regret that this situation occurred," the company says in a message to customers on its Web site. "We have no knowledge of any misuse of this information."

Affected borrowers are being given a free 90-day credit monitoring subscription and suggestions about how to mitigate potential problems that could arise out of identity theft.

"Following the loss of the tape containing the data, we suspended the physical tape transfers to the credit bureau companies and are transmitting that customer data from our Chicago data processing center exclusively by secure and encrypted electronic means," said chairman and CEO Thomas M. Goldstein in the statement.

Data on nearly 4 million CitiFinancial customers was lost while in the possession of the United Parcel Service, Citigroup announced in August.

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage informed its customers in March 2004 that a laptop computer containing confidential customer information was stolen in St. Louis when a bank employee stopped at a convenience store -- leaving his computer in the rental car. A few months prior to that, a computer containing similar information about Wells Fargo customers was stolen from the California office of consultant working for the company. It was recovered and an arrest was made.

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