Join Early Retirement Today
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service
Old 03-24-2006, 09:25 AM   #1
Moderator Emeritus
Nords's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Oahu
Posts: 26,856
Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service

The bad news is that a Fidelity rep's computer was stolen with info on HP (and DEC and Compaq) employees' 401(k) & pension accounts.

The "less bad" news is that Fidelity was the first to break the story, notified the credit-reporting agencies, boosted security on the customers' accounts, told the customers that they'd get free credit reporting for a year, and promised to reimburse them for any unauthorized activity. IOW there appears to be a significant damage-control effort.

Maybe all this effort is because Fidelity doesn't want to lose one of their lucrative customers of their biggest source of revenue, but at least they're acting instead of stonewalling.

I wonder if Fiorina or Capellas still have accounts with HP or Fidelity.

I wonder if that laptop was an HP product.
__________________
*

Co-author (with my daughter) of “Raising Your Money-Savvy Family For Next Generation Financial Independence.”
Author of the book written on E-R.org: "The Military Guide to Financial Independence and Retirement."

I don't spend much time here— please send a PM.
Nords is offline   Reply With Quote
Join the #1 Early Retirement and Financial Independence Forum Today - It's Totally Free!

Are you planning to be financially independent as early as possible so you can live life on your own terms? Discuss successful investing strategies, asset allocation models, tax strategies and other related topics in our online forum community. Our members range from young folks just starting their journey to financial independence, military retirees and even multimillionaires. No matter where you fit in you'll find that Early-Retirement.org is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with our members, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create a retirement blog, send private messages and so much, much more!

Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service
Old 03-24-2006, 09:30 AM   #2
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,375
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nords
The bad news is that a Fidelity rep's computer was stolen with info on HP (and DEC and Compaq) employees' 401(k) & pension accounts.

The "less bad" news is that Fidelity was the first to break the story, notified the credit-reporting agencies, boosted security on the customers' accounts, told the customers that they'd get free credit reporting for a year, and promised to reimburse them for any unauthorized activity. IOW there appears to be a significant damage-control effort.

Maybe all this effort is because Fidelity doesn't want to lose one of their lucrative customers of their biggest source of revenue, but at least they're acting instead of stonewalling.

I wonder if Fiorina or Capellas still have accounts with HP or Fidelity.

I wonder if that laptop was an HP product.
Why do these outfits let their employees download to laptop?
Keep one secure database and let them use under secure setup.
Danny is offline   Reply With Quote
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service
Old 03-24-2006, 09:42 AM   #3
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
cute fuzzy bunny's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Losing my whump
Posts: 22,708
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service

My thoughts exactly.
__________________
Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. Just another form of "buy low, sell high" for those who have trouble with things. This rule is not universal. Do not buy a 1973 Pinto because everyone else is afraid of it.
cute fuzzy bunny is offline   Reply With Quote
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service
Old 03-24-2006, 07:17 PM   #4
Moderator Emeritus
Nords's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Oahu
Posts: 26,856
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service

Quote:
Originally Posted by DanTien
Why do these outfits let their employees download to laptop?
I think they're going to go to thumb drives...
__________________
*

Co-author (with my daughter) of “Raising Your Money-Savvy Family For Next Generation Financial Independence.”
Author of the book written on E-R.org: "The Military Guide to Financial Independence and Retirement."

I don't spend much time here— please send a PM.
Nords is offline   Reply With Quote
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service
Old 03-25-2006, 10:40 AM   #5
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
cute fuzzy bunny's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Losing my whump
Posts: 22,708
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service

Besides the lax security, its pretty amazing how badly some companies want to hold onto your frequently worthless account data, even if you vehemently want them to delete it.

Ameritrade told me they had deleted my acct info, yet I was able to log into my account a month later. When I called, I was warmly told that they would like to leave my account open in case I wished to return. When I confirmed that I positively would not, and then called again a month later to say that I could STILL log in, the log in stopped working. $5 says they just turned the login off and kept the account data including the checking account link. Of course, a portion of their user info was hacked shortly thereafter.

Paypal went a step further, pointing to their terms of service that said they are allowed to keep my account, bank and credit card info forever. I advised that I would change all of the numbers, rendering their data worthless (and be further pissed at them) or they could remove it and make life easy for all of us. No deal...go ahead and change your numbers was the response. So done. They've been hacked several times since for user data.

Its fine to want to keep info to inflate your subscriber numbers or be able to do demographic or purchase analysis of my personal data.

Just dont be careless with it.
__________________
Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. Just another form of "buy low, sell high" for those who have trouble with things. This rule is not universal. Do not buy a 1973 Pinto because everyone else is afraid of it.
cute fuzzy bunny is offline   Reply With Quote
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service
Old 03-25-2006, 11:11 AM   #6
Moderator Emeritus
Nords's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Oahu
Posts: 26,856
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cute 'n' Fuzzy Bunny
Its fine to want to keep info to inflate your subscriber numbers or be able to do demographic or purchase analysis of my personal data.
Just dont be careless with it.
Maybe we should tell those companies that we're closing the accounts pending bankruptcy proceedings... or because we don't have access from Death Row.
__________________
*

Co-author (with my daughter) of “Raising Your Money-Savvy Family For Next Generation Financial Independence.”
Author of the book written on E-R.org: "The Military Guide to Financial Independence and Retirement."

I don't spend much time here— please send a PM.
Nords is offline   Reply With Quote
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service
Old 03-25-2006, 11:31 AM   #7
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
cute fuzzy bunny's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Losing my whump
Posts: 22,708
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service

I'm almost ready to start using a separate bank account and credit card for each major outfit I deal with like paypal, vanguard and so forth where links are required, then close the accounts at the bank and credit card companies.

These bozo's all keep the info and then eventually lose it to someone.

At least the banks and credit card companies probably delete the stuff. I think.

AIYEEEEEEEEEEE!
__________________
Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. Just another form of "buy low, sell high" for those who have trouble with things. This rule is not universal. Do not buy a 1973 Pinto because everyone else is afraid of it.
cute fuzzy bunny is offline   Reply With Quote
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service
Old 03-25-2006, 12:53 PM   #8
Full time employment: Posting here.
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 851
Re: Fidelity's stolen laptop & customer service

If you guys had any idea how lax things are with handling this type of data.....

I was a consultant/contractor for over 10 years working for one of the very biggest financial services companies you've all heard off...not only do I have copies of just about every account (for the business segment I worked with), I had every single buy/sell transaction for close to 10 years (hundres of millions of transactions and accounts), daily asset/position balances for the entire period, ssn#'s wife's names, address, spouses etc...all neatly stored on my severs in the cellar of my house (my home office)...probably its all still there if the disks haven't gone bad (turned off the servers the day I retired 4 years ago)...

No one ever question why I accumulated all this data, or why I had it...and never asked for it to be returned when I left...

I also had/have a complete copy of the High-Net-Worth and Ultra-High-Net Worth investor accounts for this same firm with even more detail information about each person (including kids names, birthdays etc)...a smorgasboard of data that could be abused if I was that type of person....

Never even once was asked to sign a non-compete or non-disclosure agreement, and they handed the data over to me 2 days after they hired me, to take home with me and use on my own PC's...mind boggling.

Also worked on a y2k set of projects for one of the biggest credit card processors...same lax security...given dial-in access from home computer with pretty much free access to anything I wanted...no questions asked...no bonding, no surety, no non-disclosure, not even any threatening mumbo-jumbo from the legal departments....

farmerEd is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Anyone using Fidelity's "Full View" service? justin FIRE and Money 23 07-15-2013 09:38 AM
Vanguard Customer Service Story yakers Other topics 12 08-17-2006 01:10 PM
Customer Service Phone Line Cheat Sheet gratefuled Other topics 1 02-04-2006 02:43 AM
Net Bank - Poor Customer Service Lancelot Other topics 7 09-22-2005 04:51 AM
Fidelity vs vanguard customer service Roger_R FIRE and Money 9 07-01-2004 06:21 PM

» Quick Links

 
All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:08 AM.
 
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.