Mar 26, 2008
THE BALTIMORE SUN | A Pittsburgh-based shareholder
services firm has notified about 3,500 individuals -- some of them
Maryland residents -- that the company lost a box of computer data
tapes last month storing personal information including names, Social
Security numbers and possibly bank account numbers, a spokesman said
Wednesday.
BNY Mellon Shareowner Services, which assists clients such as MetLife,
sent letters to affected shareholders of such clients offering them 12
months of free credit monitoring and other assistance, according to a
letter received by one affected investor.
"We have received no indications that there's been any inappropriate
use of the data on the tapes," said Ron Sommer, a spokesman for the Bank of New York Mellon Corp.
The company backs up its computer database every day and sends the
tapes to a secure storage facility, he said. On Feb. 27, a courier told
them that one box could not be found.
BNY Mellon investigated to determine what kind of information the tapes
held and notified its clients. It then sent a letter to the
shareholders. The company estimates that less than 1 percent of its 35
million clients nationwide have been affected, and fewer than 1 percent
of the affected shareholders live in Maryland, Sommer said.
