NORTH CAROLINA COMPUTER STOLEN FROM BANK OF AMERICA Bank of America notifying customers after laptop theft - Computerworld Home > Browse Topics > Security


Bank of America notifying customers after laptop theft
Users of Visa Buxx prepaid debit cards affected


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News Story by Robert McMillan

OCTOBER 07, 2005 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Users of the Bank of America Corp.'s Visa Buxx prepaid debit cards are being warned that they may have had sensitive information compromised after the theft of an unencrypted laptop computer.

In a letters sent to Buxx users and dated Sept. 23, the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank warned that customers may have had their bank account numbers, routing transit numbers, names and credit card numbers compromised by the theft. Visa Buxx was a prepaid credit card for teenagers that the Bank of America stopped selling in January.

The laptop, which belonged to an unnamed Bank of America service provider, was stolen Aug. 29, said Diane Wagner, a company spokeswoman. The bank was notified of the theft Sept. 9 and began sending out the letters after a two-week investigation, she said.

Though the information on the laptop would not have been easily accessible to thieves, it wasn't encrypted, Wagner said. The bank has been monitoring the affected accounts and hasn't observed any signs of fraud. "We have no evidence that an unauthorized person has accessed or even reviewed that customer information," she said.

Wagner refused to offer many details on the theft, which was reported today in the San Francisco Chronicle. She declined to name the service provider, say how many Bank of America customers had been affected or even confirm that the theft had occurred within the U.S.

This isn't the first time Bank of America has had to notify account holders of identity theft. In March, it confirmed that information on about 60,000 of its customers had been stolen by an identity-theft ring.

The March disclosure came just a month after the company revealed that it had lost digital tapes containing the credit card account records of 1.2 million U.S. federal employees