Complain about a product or service

Ameriprise Loses Customer Data

January 29, 2006

Data Theft • T-Mobile: No Hacking in Data Breach • T-Mobile Confirms Data Breach • Consumers Increasingly Concerned About Online Transactions • Are Identity Theft Services Worth the Cost? • Online Tools Help Spot Financial Fraud • Financial Fraud Hits 7.5 Percent Of Americans In 2008 • Feds Charge Mortgage Broker In Potential Data Breach • Millions of Credit Cards Exposed in Data Breach • 2008 Data Breach Total Soars • Bank Data Breach Threatens 248,000 in North Carolina • GPS Not Foolproof • Countrywide Warns Millions of Data Breach • Thieves Steal AT&T Laptop with Employee Data • Report: Data Breach Disclosure Laws Don't Affect Identity Theft • Patient Information Exposed in Data Breach at Walter Reed • Supermarket Chain Reports Data Breach • Report: Feds Still Not Doing Enough To Secure Data • Data Thieves Hit Georgetown University Students, Faculty • 800,000 Job Seekers At Risk In Gap Data Breach • TJX Data Breach Settlement Has Strings Attached • More ...

Ameriprise Financial, a recent spin-off of American Express, has notified more than 150,000 customers and more than 65,000 financial advisors of a potential data breach.

The company says a laptop computer containing sensitive personal information was stolen from a car in December.

The location of the city in which the theft took place was not divulged and the company isn't saying who the employee was. Company officials said the case is still under investigation.

The company says it does not believe the thief targeted the car in order to steal the data. Officials say the vehicle was not parked in an Ameriprise parking lot, and there was nothing to identify the vehicle as belonging to an Ameriprise employee.

A spokesman said the data on the laptop is not readily available to the casual user because the software program is password protected.

However, Ameriprise concedes the data containing the sensitive information was not encrypted, as required by company policy. It was also left unexplained why a computer containing so much sensitive data was left in an employee’s personal vehicle.

Officials say one of the files on the computer contained only the names and internal Ameriprise account numbers of 158,000 customers. The second included the names and Social Security numbers of 68,000 Ameriprise advisers.

Report Your Experience
If you've had a bad experience -- or a good one -- with a consumer product or service, we'd like to hear about it. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on our site. Knowledge is power! Help spread the word. File your consumer report now.

Back to the top |