The bank details of 200 wealthy people — including 3 UK lottery winners — have been found by the side of the road after apparently falling out of a couriers van.
The details belonged to the customers of finance firm Prudential and included items such as checks and other personal documents that criminals could use to steal the identities of those people.
The documents were found near a access road for Junction 11 of the M4 near Reading by a vehicle recovery driver. The documents were on their way to a secure storage facility in Essex via DHL.
"He (the DHL courier) appears not to have noticed that the door of his van was open and the box appears to have fallen out," said a source close to the incident.
"The Pru (Prudential) is clearly not happy at all. It has suspended all use of DHL until the investigation is concluded."
Prudential have swiftly assured their customers that they will not incur any financial loss from the blunder.
"Protection of our customers' data is of paramount importance to us and we are contacting them immediately," said a spokesman for Prudential.
"The key thing is that none of those customers will suffer any financial loss as a result of this."
Quote: Originally posted by ThatScaryChick on Jan 11, 2008
To have the details of your bank information, just fall out the back of a truck is awful. It should have been more secure.
It is a rare event but it can happen..Lucky the person who found it did the right thing and notified...I was thinking to myself something like... what if a bag of money fell out an armored truck what would you do?
Quote: Originally posted by benmas on Jan 11, 2008
It is a rare event but it can happen..Lucky the person who found it did the right thing and notified...I was thinking to myself something like... what if a bag of money fell out an armored truck what would you do?
With my luck, I would open the bag and the dye pack would go off and I'd be accused of robbing a bank.
Seriously, I would turn it in at the nearest police station and get a receipt.
The driver should be held accountable for his neglect. When you have an important job, you should cover all steps to make sure you are able to carry it through. If not give it to someone who can..
I'm not exactly sure what information was disclosed, but sometimes ID theft is grossly exaggerated. I wrote more, but I decided if I want to rant about the fear that we live in today, I'll start a blog. I do agree its on the side & we need to be careful about whom we talk to and the personal information we furnish, but most of it is widely available anyway. You can't file taxes without using your soc sec # & millions of people put everything about their lives on a form & into an envelope with a stamp and hand it to the postman. (About 40 million people use online tax services.) We've been doing that for generations along with sending checks to every Tom, Dick & Harry at the phone company, electric company, water company, etc., and checks have our name, address, and bank account number on them (and personal signature!) Then we get statements in the mail from every checking account, savings account, money market, CD, blah, blah, blah.
This definitely was an unfortunate incident, but it happens.
The driver should be held accountable for his neglect. When you have an important job, you should cover all steps to make sure you are able to carry it through. If not give it to someone who can..
I wrote in my last post: I do agree its on the side & we need to be careful
Brain malfunction or bad typo? I meant to write "I do agree it's on the rise (identity theft) and we need to be careful.
Tntea, yes everyone should do the best job he/she can, but mistakes happen. Guess what? Doctors kill people everyday and politicians bankrupt countries. Cops shoot people too. Nobody can get up in the morning and do a perfect job everyday.
The driver goofed and probably feels a lot worse than you do right now, especially if he was disciplined or lost his job. He should have been more careful, but obviously something went wrong. You have no idea if the driver has held that position for 10 years with an excellent record. Maybe he was assigned a van with faulty doors or locks. I know you are perfect, but give this guy a break.
To have the details of your bank information, just fall out the back of a truck is awful. It should have been more secure.
It is a rare event but it can happen..Lucky the person who found it did the right thing and notified...I was thinking to myself something like... what if a bag of money fell out an armored truck what would you do?
With my luck, I would open the bag and the dye pack would go off and I'd be accused of robbing a bank.
Seriously, I would turn it in at the nearest police station and get a receipt.
The driver should be held accountable for his neglect. When you have an important job, you should cover all steps to make sure you are able to carry it through. If not give it to someone who can..
I'm not exactly sure what information was disclosed, but sometimes ID theft is grossly exaggerated. I wrote more, but I decided if I want to rant about the fear that we live in today, I'll start a blog. I do agree its on the side & we need to be careful about whom we talk to and the personal information we furnish, but most of it is widely available anyway. You can't file taxes without using your soc sec # & millions of people put everything about their lives on a form & into an envelope with a stamp and hand it to the postman. (About 40 million people use online tax services.) We've been doing that for generations along with sending checks to every Tom, Dick & Harry at the phone company, electric company, water company, etc., and checks have our name, address, and bank account number on them (and personal signature!) Then we get statements in the mail from every checking account, savings account, money market, CD, blah, blah, blah.
This definitely was an unfortunate incident, but it happens.
I wrote in my last post: I do agree its on the side & we need to be careful
Brain malfunction or bad typo? I meant to write "I do agree it's on the rise (identity theft) and we need to be careful.
Tntea, yes everyone should do the best job he/she can, but mistakes happen. Guess what? Doctors kill people everyday and politicians bankrupt countries. Cops shoot people too. Nobody can get up in the morning and do a perfect job everyday.
The driver goofed and probably feels a lot worse than you do right now, especially if he was disciplined or lost his job. He should have been more careful, but obviously something went wrong. You have no idea if the driver has held that position for 10 years with an excellent record. Maybe he was assigned a van with faulty doors or locks. I know you are perfect, but give this guy a break.