Countrywide warns customers to be alert for ID theft

Countrywide Financial Corp. is sending letters to customers, telling them to be on the alert for identity theft after a former Countrywide employee was arrested last month and charged with stealing and selling the personal information of at least two million customers.

In addition to advising customers to watch their monthly statements for credit cards and other business, Countrywide also offered the affected customers free credit monitoring for the next two years.

Countrywide home loans is offering two years of free credit monitoring service to customers who get a letter that a former employee may have stolen their personal information.

But some customers said trying to sign up for that service was frustrating.

Phyllis Sparks is one of them. She doesn't like giving her social security number on the Internet.

"There is nothing on the Internet that you can assume is absolutely secure."

She called the credit service only to here a recorded message. So, Sparks then called Countrywide. "They really couldn't be that helpful as far as being able to get enrolled and the free two-year monitoring." She's since gotten through to the credit service, but was told her husband needs to call because the loan is in his name.

She said, in the future, she'll be more careful with mortgage companies. "In the future, I'm going to be asking them what kind of security do you have in place to safeguard our personal information and our Social Security numbers. You know, what kind of background check do you do on your employees? I'm going to be asking a whole lot more questions."

Paul Stevens with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse said the danger of ID theft might not be as serious as it first appeared.

"In this one, it appears to be most likely that it was for marketing purposes," Stevens said.

He added, "The value of this information probably was greatest for the purpose of marketing mortgages rather than for fraudulent activities."

Identity theft expert Jim Harper with the Cato Institute said the case demonstrates that consumers are in a pickle when it comes to giving up information.

"On the one hand, you're supposed to keep things like your Social Security number secret and, on the other hand, you have to give it out when applying for credit, applying for a new phone, for all kinds of different purposes," Harper said. "Medical records often use the SSN."

Harper said ID theft can strike close to home -- in many cases, relatives can be some of the most dangerous ID thieves.

So far, there have been no cases of ID theft reported because of the Countrywide theft. Rene L. Rebollo Jr., 36, a former employee of Countrywide Home Loans, was arrested in August at his home in Pasadena, Calif. Also charged in the case is Wahid Siddiqi, 25, of Thousand Oaks, Calif. According to court documents, Rebollo was fired in July after he allegedly acknowledged to the FBI that he had given account information of Countrywise customers to third parties over the course of two years.

Countrywide, engaged primarily in residential mortgage banking and related businesses, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America. It operates throughout the United States, including Arizona.