Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Countrywide settlement over ID theft gets initial OK

c/o Privacy Regulation

A federal judge has given preliminary approval to a settlement between Countrywide Financial and millions of customers whose detailed financial information was exposed in a security breach.

Under the terms of the settlement, Countrywide, now owned by Bank of America, would give free credit monitoring to up to 17 million people whose information was exposed during the security breach.

That group includes anyone who obtained a mortgage and anyone who used Countrywide to service a mortgage before July 1, 2008.

The settlement entitles a person to receive up to $50,000 in reimbursements from Countrywide per instance of identity theft, provided they actually lost something of value, were not reimbursed and that it was likely the theft stemmed from the Countrywide breach.

via Seattle Times Newspaper.

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