If you've ever thought that your personal information was safe at work, this might make you change your mind.
This week a federal grand jury has indicted a Chicago area temporary employee for identity theft of over 2,100 employees. The employee, who was working for AT&T, had two accomplices. The trio of women apparently used the stolen information to fill out "payday" loan applications, then used random photos of individuals and faxed in the account information. After that, they would wire the money into their accounts. Before being apprehended, the trio stole more than $70,000.
It's pretty despicable when an employee steals trusted customer data. But stealing employee data is even worse, because if you can't trust your own employees or co-workers, who can you trust? They're supposed to be on your side.
On the brighter side of things, at least the number of affected people is lower than your typical data breach. If they had stolen customer data, the number of people affected could have easily been in the millions and that would have been a tremendous blow to AT&T.
These criminals will face 20 years in prison and $250,000 each for the fraud charges and 2 years for each count of identity theft, to be served consecutively, after the other 20 years for the fraud. These girls aren't going anywhere, anytime soon. Score one for the Feds.
Read the article from the SC Magazine here.
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3 comments:
How stupid was that? Did they actually think they wouldn't get caught?
What morons!
Hope they get a long sentence when they are convicted.
Motive and opportunity are all that are required. I guess the current economic condition really does bring out the worst.
But then, I don't want to give the impression that the recession somehow excuses this kind of criminality because it clearly does not. These employees violated the trust they were given and abused their position for personal gain at the expense of their customers.
They committed fraud and theft and should be held to account for their actions.
While customers will more than likely suffer the consequences of this identity theft down the road, perhaps in the form of increased rates, this particular case of identity theft is different. The employees at AT&T are the ones that had their identities stolen and compromised, not the customers.
Luckily, I think it's probably easier to fix employee relationships than it is to fix customer relationships. A burned customer will think twice about using your services, while an employee will receive some sort of compensation for the trouble and still collect a paycheck. As a result, they may be more willing to forgive in order to continue their employment.
Proper employee screening might have been able to determine the mindset of this individual before she was ever hired, or perhaps find a criminal past. This would have all prevented the theft in the first place. Due diligence is a must.
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