Barclays Bank's customer data "stolen", claims newspaper

  • 10 February 2014
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 Rogue city traders acquired sensitive information belonging to 2,000 Barclays Bank customers, the Mail on Sunday reports.

An investigation is underway following a report that thousands of Barclays Bank customer files were alleged to have been stolen and sold.

The report by the Mail on Sunday said the sensitive information, which included details about customers’ earnings, savings, mortgages, health issues and insurance policies, was sold to rogue city traders.

It is claimed the information was "worth millions on the black market because it allowed unsuspecting individuals to be targeted in investment scams".

An anonymous whistleblower handed a memory stick to the newspaper containing personal data on 2,000 Barclays customers and said details belonging to a further 25,000 was also available.

The informant said each file could be sold for £50 a time. Among the victims are doctors, businessmen, scientists, a musician and a cleaner, the newspaper claims.

The theft has now led to the bank-led investigation into the alleged theft.

The files date from 2008, and are thought to belong to customers who originally contacted the bank for advice from its Barclay Financial Planning arm. This division of the bank was shut down in 2011.

A select few traders were given the “Barclay leads” from December 2012 to September last year. As a result, it's claimed a number of victims were scammed into buying rare earth metals that did not exist. The whistleblower said around 1,000 victims could have fallen for the sting.
 
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Made me glad that I am not a customer of that august institution...LOL...but seriously this makes me wonder if we are all getting very blase about information per se...and how it is handled.
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I think you are probably right, information is too freely handed around and freely available these days.

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