Data breach at Countrywide Financial leads to class action lawsuit
When it was discovered that Rene Rebollo came into the office every Sunday for two years and stole a total of roughly two million files, Countrywide’s management said they were unaware he was downloading customer information to sell it; they just though Rene Rebollo, 36, was an especially hard working employee. Now, a class action lawsuit asks whether Rebollo was working on his own, or whether he was just the fall guy tasked with selling off the stolen information to raise money for the failing Countrywide Home Loan.
The plaintiffs are asking for a $20 million settlement and additional punitive damages because of their elevated identity theft risk they face and the invasion of their privacy.
According to the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office, Rebollo, a senior financial analyst, downloaded 20,000 customer files containing extensive personal and financial information every week, and sold them to an outsider. The data breach was detected in 2008 when the mortgage company was failing and they were negotiating the sale of Countrywide Home Loans and Countrywide Financial to Bank of America, which is also named in the suit.
The FBI investigated the theft and arrested Rebollo, a former employee of Countrywide Home Loans. Rebollo allegedly sold the stolen information to Wahid Siddiqi, who, in turn, sold the information to other mortgage companies, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. In statements to the FBI, claimed the sale of the files netted him somewhere between $50,000 and $70,000. At his court appearance, Rebollo pleaded not guilty.
The plaintiffs claim Countrywide delayed notifying their customers of the data breach for several months in order to “gain time and money.” When they were forced to admit to the data breach, they still notified only some of the affected customers and then offered them nothing more than counseling.
Before their economic meltdown, Countrywide was the largest mortgage lender in the country and specialized in subprime loans.
Tags: Countrywide Home Loans, Data breach, Identity Theft, Rene Rebollo
