ChoicePoint Data Breach Victims Still Await Payments

by Mike Bevel, CollectionIndustry.com

Happy almost-eight-month-versary to defrauded ChoicePoint customers! You?re still without any kind of cash settlement, though, right?

ChoicePoint is one of the largest data aggregators and resellers in the country. What does this mean? It means they collect your personal information and sell this information to marketing firms and advertisers ? not to mention employers, debt collectors, loan officers, media organizations, law offices, law enforcement, etc.

It?s legit ? if sticky ? and few people knew about ChoicePoint or ChoicePoint-esque operations ? until data thieves opened fake accounts at ChoicePoint and had access to roughly 19 billion records.

Federal regulators stepped in, and they secured a settlement with ChoicePoint (whom they found to be liable for the breach) to compensate the 800 folks affected by the breach. A fund was set up with $5 million dollars.

The Federal Trade Commission also has not yet implemented procedures for how the 800 fraud victims it has identified so far can apply for and receive compensation from the fund, nor has it hired anyone to administer the fund on behalf of the agency, FTC spokeswoman Claudia Bourne Farrell told the Associated Press.

The delay is being attributed to a cautious investigation. Jessica Rich, assistant director of the FTC’s division of privacy and identity theft, said that “law enforcement is still identifying victims, and we want to make sure we have the right people.”