Commerce Bank isn’t sure whether it accidentally gave out your SSN and account number, so its going to write you a letter to offer you some free credit report monitoring.
The hypothetical data breach may or may not be affecting a very small portion of the bank’s 3 million customers. They’re not sure.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
A bank spokesman said only a small portion of its three million customers are affected. However, officials cannot be certain if the information was actually shared at all.
Bank officials are sending out letters to customers that may be impacted. Those customers will also offered twelve months of free credit monitoring.
Commerce Bank concerned customer data may have leaked [Philadelphis Inquirer]
(Photo:cmorran123)
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At least they’re doing something about it. They let the customers know, and they’re offering free credit monitoring. In a case like this, I think that’s the best you can really hope for.
A year or so ago, an HR person in my company lost a laptop while traveling that had employee data on it. The company didn’t know for sure whose name was in the records on the laptop, so they gave a free year of Equifax credit monitoring to everyone in the company. I’m sure if this were Bank of America, you would have never heard of the data breach.
If the small portion of commerce customers effect is anything like the small portion of Xbox 360s that locked up, then us commerce customers are screwed.
Hang in there Commerce customers.. If you haven’t heard already, Uncle TD from Canada is buying Commerce Bank and we, I mean they, spend alot of time and resources to ensure our, I mean their, customer’s information is safe.. Oh, and we promise to take really good care of you and your money..
How do you “accidentally give out” 3 million SSNs? Did someone just call and ask for them, and the bank rep just got confused about whether that was private information? Did Commerce Bank “accidentally” sell consumer data to some other company? I’m not sure what could have happened here, but any possible scenario seems disturbing.
That aside, Commerce Bank rocks! Sadly, I had to close my account because I moved to a non-Commerce Bank-having part of town, but it was a great place to have my money. Late hours, open at reasonable times on weekends! Someone finally realized that decent customer service would attract people to a bank. Hopefully the takeover won’t mess everything up.
Goodness, that’s a pretty huge oversight. Nice to know that they’ll make an attempt to make amends.
On a slightly different note, contrary to what everyone I know says, my personal experiences with Commerce Bank has been disappointing (to put it lightly). Maybe luck of the draw, but I’ve seen better, more friendlier service from other major banks. In the meantime, Commerce will be my secondary bank (if at all) unless they get their act together or they pull out the last straw.
I assume that this is about the Commerce bank chain in New England (since it is in Philly), not the midwest chain of banks ALSO named “Commerce Bank”. I wish you guys would point this out when reporting on Commerce bank.
I wish there was also some seperation from the Midwest chain in the articles about Commerce Bank. The way I can usually tell is the color of the sign in the picture. Midwest Commerce Bank = Green. I have had no problems with Commerce Bank in the Midwest.
To add a twist of more nomenclature, there is a Commerce Bank & Trust (blue and yellow logo’ing) in “Central Massachusetts” (Worcester) that is not related to either Commerce of NJ (red/white/blue), Commerce of KS (green), nor Commerce of Topeka, KS (red and brown)
@Beerad: It says “…only a small portion of its three million customers are affected” so it’s not ALL 3 million customers, then again they don’t specify what “small portion” means either.
@proud-infidel: Ah, right! Curse you, reading comprehension!!! I’m still puzzled as to how that would happen.
@NoWin: I live in the Kansas City area, where Commerce (Midwest) is headquartered, and my recent trip to Topeka (the capital of KS, around an hour away) and the other Commerce threw me off a bit. Aren’t there some kind of McDonald’s style naming restrictions?
The CB&T in Topeka is (my guess) state-chartered, while the big green (Commerce Bancshares) is a NA (National Association) banking entity.
So, they can operate in the same state, but their names are different. We pedestrians just forget to use their “full name” when thinking of “your local Commerce”.
If a bank teller told you had an unknown bank account with $5.8 million in it and the bank insisted it’s yours, wouldn’t you spend it? That’s what Brooklyn resident Benjamin Lovell did – now he’s paying. Lovell shares the same name as an employee at Delaware company Woodlawn Trustees.
They did not notify me, I found out when my account was cleaned out to the last even dollar. Even as I have been fighting with commerce to try and get my money back, nobody has mentioned this.
The money was taken from my account via a counter withdrawal, the ID offered was not checked against the computer because at the time of the theft my driver’s license number was not in the computer for some reason. I was required to present my license to open the account, so why this information was not on their system is curious.
When the theft was discovered Commerce opened a new account for me, which was compromised within hours, when someone deposited a forged check. This time they had to use my SSN to get the account number (it was recorded on the deposit slip).
In each case, the activity took place in branches a long way from where I live and consequently I have never visited. Evidently, no one at commerce questioned this.
Commerce has admitted to me that some security procedures must have been violated, but they will not give back my money. They say I must file a police report. I tried in Philadelphia and they said it was not within their jurisdiction. So I tried the town where I live and they’re not interested either. So now I have to find time to go to New Jersey and file with the police department where the first withdrawal took place. (They initially refused to take the report as well, but they changed their minds when I faxed all of the documents to them. I did the same with my local police as well, I’m just trying to get it on the record.) But I still can’t get my money back.
I have changed banks and I’m warning everyone I know not to do business with these clowns.