In part, with emphasis:
And we wonder why this continues to be the number one complaint filed with the FTC.Criminal Customers
LexisNexis said that criminals were able to use its systems for three years to obtain data they could use to open credit card accounts in other people's names, according to an article Computerworld ran online Friday.
Though the fraud at LexisNexis was stopped on Oct. 10, 2007, the company delayed notification of the 32,000 possible victims until now, at the request of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the article said. The inspection service did not return calls requesting comment for the article.
The incident is reminiscent of the 2006 disclosure by ChoicePoint, which said fraudsters had opened up accounts with the data aggregator to obtain information about consumers, the article said. Reed Elsevier Group PLC, which owns LexisNexis, bought ChoicePoint last year.
The notification letter said the perpetrators "were operating businesses that at one time were both ChoicePoint and LexisNexis customers."