Fallout from our financial down turn

[TheMercenary]

Records being dumped in the local landfill. Nice:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23505497/

[lumberjim]

nice. and even nicer of msnbc to advertise that to all the criminals that can read the news story about it. fucking brilliant.

[aimeecc]

Criminals have been dumpster diving for our data at banks for years.

[lookout123]

Mortgage companies aren't known for their scrupulous care of sensitive information. I guarantee the companies that are dumping the records now, were also dumping it during the boom.

[tw]

Originally Posted by lookout123

Mortgage companies aren't known for their scrupulous care of sensitive information.

Since no system exists so that one can confirm the security of personal data, well, many don't even realize when they give others the right to access that data. For example, any tax company that submits your tax return electronically to the IRS also can legally use your confidential data. They have everything on your return, in electronic format, and legal access to that information. Why do so many companies offer to file your returns for free? Because access to your confidential records is their profit source.

[lumberjim]

we have a manager here whose purpose in life is to break balls about privacy issues. every scrap of info that is not retained in files for 7 years goes into big blue locked trash bins. a bonded company comes around once a week and takes them off to be destroyed.

in 99 the senate passed the Gramm Leach Bliley act

title V deals with privacy of information

1 TITLE V—PRIVACY
2 Subtitle A—Disclosure of
3 Nonpublic Personal Information
4 SEC. 501. PROTECTION OF NONPUBLIC PERSONAL INFOR5
MATION.
6 (a) PRIVACY OBLIGATION POLICY.—It is the policy
7 of the Congress that each financial institution has an af8
firmative and continuing obligation to respect the privacy
9 of its customers and to protect the security and confiden10
tiality of those customers’ nonpublic personal information.
11 (b) FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS SAFEGUARDS.—In fur12
therance of the policy in subsection (a), each agency or
13 authority described in section 505(a) shall establish appro14
priate standards for the financial institutions subject to
15 their jurisdiction relating to administrative, technical, and
16 physical safeguards—
17 (1) to insure the security and confidentiality of
18 customer records and information;
19 (2) to protect against any anticipated threats or
20 hazards to the security or integrity of such records;
21 and
22 (3) to protect against unauthorized access to or
23 use of such records or information which could re-
F:\FSA99\REPORT\S900CRPT.005
F:\V6\102899\102899.0H6
October 28, 1999
2
H.L.C.
1 sult in substantial harm or inconvenience to any cus2
tomer.

[lookout123]

Privacy act info was far more protected at the car store I worked at than ANY of the numerous mortgage companies I've seen the inside of. The car store operated exactly how you described. The mortgage companies are a completely different story. If you did an inspection you would find of loan officers you would find:

1) Client application packages sitting on desktops, credit apps, pay stubs, w-2's copied right inside.

2) Stacks of old CBR's sitting in drawers.

3) If you could follow them home you'd also see copies of that stuff at the LO's home - for the day they decide to go to a competitor, they can recontact all previous clients.

I've seen it time and time again.

[tw]

With just some simple information from that credit application or from previous returns, another example of profitting from identity theft. From the Wall Street Journal of 12 Mar 2008:

Identity Thieves
Target Tax Refunds
IRS officials say they have taken steps to combat the problem. But the agency "has not done enough to improve identity theft procedures for victims of identity theft or to secure its filing system from fraudulent filers," Ms. Olson said in her report to Congress. IRS procedures "are reactive rather than proactive and assume taxpayers will have the wherewithal to contact the IRS and work their way through layers of employees until they reach someone with the authority to adjust the accounts," she said.

"Too often, victims of identity theft receive more scrutiny from the IRS than the perpetrators of identity theft," Ms. Olson said.