Joining the ranks of Choicepoint and LexisNexis, Ameritrade and Ralph Lauren (Polo) have both acknowledged that private data belonging to their customers has been compromised. Also, LexisNexis this week announced that the breach of their customers’ personal data was greater than initially thought - by a factor of as much as tenfold.

Now granted, the Ameritrade data was actually “lost,” apparently by a shipping company, but the end result is the same - in the Ameritrade case the personal data belonging to nearly 200,000 Ameritrade customers is lost and unaccounted for. Interestingly, despite acknowledging that the missing data tape contains the personal data of approximately 200,000 Ameritrade customers, Ameritrade spokesperson Donna Kush has indicated that they have determined they only need to notify 175,000 of those 200,000 (I’m glad I’m not in that other 25,000)! The tape was one of four that were being shipped together; the entire package was lost and only three of the four data tapes were recovered.

According to Kush, “Ameritrade has every reason to believe the missing tape has been destroyed or is still somewhere in the shipper’s facility.” Am I the only one who would like to know the scenario under which that might be true? It seems that consumers might wish to avoid doing business with either Ameritrade, or the as yet unnamed shipper - which should it be?

And the credit card information of thousands of Polo Ralph Lauren customers…

[Continue reading Are You an Ameritrade Customer? Ralph Lauren? LexisNexis? If So, Your Private Data May Have Been Hacked]