Wells Fargo Customers’ Bank Account and Social Security Numbers Exposed, Used for Fraud in Mysterious Data Breach

A data breach at Wells Fargo is affecting an unknown number of the banking giant’s customers.

A new filing with the Office of the Vermont Attorney General shows the lender is warning customers that an insider at the bank has accessed and used their information to perpetrate fraud.

The San Francisco, California-based bank has not issued a public statement, but a copy of a letter sent to customers says the bank confirmed in July that a former employee had accessed sensitive data for illicit purposes.

The bank began sending out notices last month.

“The personal information accessed between May 2022 and March 2023 may have included your name, address, date of birth, phone number, email address, social security number, driver’s license number, bank account number(s), credit/debit card number(s), brokerage account number(s), and/or loan/line of credit number(s)…

We are taking measures to monitor your account(s) for suspicious events or changes and continually review our security measures to reduce the likelihood of this happening in the future.”

A similar breach affected Wells Fargo customers in April.

At the time, Wells Fargo notified its customers that another former employee had accessed sensitive personal information and mortgage account numbers belonging to customers and sent the data to his personal account.

The April data breach triggered at least one law firm to initiate investigations into the incident with a view of potentially filing a class action lawsuit.

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