Bank customers notified their records allegedly stolen and sold to collection agencies

Monday, May 23rd 2005, 2:00 pm

By: News On 6

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) _ More than 100,000 customers of Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp. have been notified that their financial records may have been stolen by bank employees and sold to collection agencies.

So far, Bank of America has alerted about 60,000 customers whose names were included on computer disks discovered by police, bank spokeswoman Alex Liftman said Monday.

``We are trying to communicate with our customers as promptly as possible,'' she said. ``So far, we have no evidence that any of our customer information has been used for account fraud or identity theft.''

Wachovia said it has identified 48,000 current and former account holders whose accounts may have been breached.

``The numbers have increased as we continue to receive additional names from police,'' Wachovia spokeswoman Christy Phillips said Monday.

Both banks are providing the affected customers with free credit reporting services.

The theft was exposed last month when police in Hackensack, N.J., charged nine people, including a business owner, a New Jersey state worker and seven bank workers, in an alleged plot to steal financial records of thousands of bank customers.

The bank employees accessed records for customers of Cherry Hill, N.J.-based Commerce Bank, PNC Bank of Pittsburgh, and Charlotte-based banks Wachovia and Bank of America, according to Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa.

Orazio Lembo Jr., 35, of Hackensack allegedly made millions of dollars through the scheme and spent most of it on a fast-paced lifestyle, Zisa has said.

Authorities said they discovered the plot after they executed a search warrant at Lembo's apartment in February as part of a separate investigation. They seized 13 computers which contained details about the plan, Zisa said.

Lembo received lists of people sought for debt collection and turned that information over to the seven bank workers, who would compare those names to their client lists. The bank workers were paid $10 for each account they turned over to Lembo, Zisa said.