Shipper locates missing tape with mortgage data By Becky Yerak Tribune staff reporter Published December 21, 2005
A missing computer tape with personal information about 2 million ABN Amro residential mortgage customers, including 200,000 in Illinois, has been discovered at a DHL facility in Ohio and returned, via overnight shipping, to the lender.
The tape, which included the names and Social Security numbers of all residential customers of Chicago-based LaSalle Bank Corp.'s mortgage business, went missing Nov. 18 en route to Texas after being picked up by DHL at an ABN data processing center in Chicago.
After weeks of futile searching, ABN Amro Mortgage Group Inc. publicly announced last Friday that the tape was presumed lost.
Tuesday, however, it announced that the tape had turned up at a DHL facility in Wilmington, Ohio.
According to ABN, DHL found the package without its original waybill, then opened the package, found the return address on the tape and on Sunday repackaged it with a new waybill addressed to ABN, which received it Monday.
In a conference call Tuesday, ABN said it's unaware of any misuse of the lost data. But the lender has decided to extend an offer for a free 90-day credit monitoring service to one year.
ABN Chief Executive Thomas Goldstein acknowledged Tuesday that "many customers are experiencing delays" signing up for the monitoring service and said the company is trying to improve accessibility.
Last week, ABN sent out 2.1 million letters alerting customers to the lost data, a mailing that "has resulted in volume that has overwhelmed" the system to help consumers sign up for the credit service.
The November security lapse came just weeks before ABN was to begin transmitting the tape's data electronically.
For sensitive data not ready to be sent electronically, ABN said it plans to use a "secure courier system" offered by FedEx in which drivers stay with the tape the entire time. ABN will continue to use DHL for some shipping, Goldstein said.
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