Bank of America sent out a warning to some customers alerting them to a possible breach of their personal data following a third party’s vendor mishap with physical documents late last year.
On Dec. 30, an unnamed document destruction vendor failed to properly secure bank materials while moving them, the bank told customers in a letter.
As a result, the bank said, some documents later were found outside their containers along the outside of the financial center to which they were sent.
The vendor could not determine exactly whose documents were affected, leading Bank of America to warn anyone who could have been affected by the incident.
The unsecured information was related to people’s bank accounts and could have included their names, email addresses, phone numbers, date of birth, sex, home and business addresses, Social Security information, government identification numbers and financial information.
Bank of America added in the letter that it is monitoring the accounts of potentially affected customers and is providing a free two-year membership in an Experian identity theft protection service.
The letter Bank of America sent to customers did not specify exactly how many people could have been affected in which states. It did list contact information for the attorneys general in Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Washington, D.C., as well as information for reaching the New York Department of State’s consumer protection unit.
Of those four jurisdictions, Massachusetts has listed online that, as of Feb. 21, two state residents had been caught up in the breach. Their Social Security information, credit and debit card numbers, driver’s license and financial accounts had been breached as a result of the incident.
