Two Charged In Alleged Scam To Swipe Personal Customer Information From Countrywide Database; As Many As 2 Million Names Run & Sold, Say Feds

In Los Angeles, California, The Associated Press reports:

• Two men, including a former Countrywide Home Loans employee, were charged [last week] in a scam to steal and sell the private financial information of customers of the company, authorities said.(1) Prosecutors suspect the data was eventually sold to companies that would then try to make other loans to the Countrywide customers, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office.

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• [Rebollo] is suspected of downloading the information from about 20,000 customers each week for two years and selling the data in batches of 20,000 for $500, authorities said. "As many as 2 million names were run and sold," Mrozek said. "However, we don't know if there was any overlap."

For more, see Two charged in scam to sell Countrywide data.

(1) According to the story, the former employee, Rene L. Rebollo Jr., 36, of Pasadena, was charged with exceeding authorized access to the computer of a financial institution, the FBI said in a statement. Wahid Siddiqi, 25, of Thousand Oaks is accused of fraud and related activity in connection with access devices, the FBI said.