Sorry Dude, We Lost Your Data

RoadRage received a letter from Countrywide yesterday -- the bank that owns my mortgage.

Apparently, one of their employees, a guy named Rene Rebollo, was accused of supplementing his income by selling customer data, including their Social Security numbers.

Things like this happen pretty regularly I guess -- according to this article on the data breach, more than 480 have been reported this year alone.

My problem is with Countrywide and their attitude about the whole thing. Reading the letter, it's kind of like Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High wrote it: "Awww...duuude ... I lost your data. Did you hear that? That's my head ... I'm so wasted..."

Here's a key paragraph from the actual letter they sent to me:

"If you are a current Countrywide mortgage holder, we will take necessary precautions to monitor your mortgage account and will notify you if we detect any suspicious or unauthorized activity related to this incident. We will also work with you to resolve unauthorized transactions on your Countrywide mortgage account."

So, in other words, if something happens as a result of my stolen identity that doesn't involve my Countrywide account, I'm on my own. Countrywide has worked out free credit reporting service for two years -- but, again, if anything happens as a result of this data breach, I have to take care of it all by myself. I'll have to call any other companies where my information is being used (assuming it's discovered before it's too late), and I don't even know what to do if my SS# is used by someone else.

Meanwhile, Countrywide let me know Rebollo has been fired. That's good -- but not enough. Private information of more than 20,000 people were sold -- this guy should be strung up by his balls, and if he doesn't divulge the name of the company he sold the data to he should get even worse.

And, if anyone is interested in a case action lawsuit against Countrywide, count me in!

RoadRage