Lisa Fernandez writes in the Mercury News:
It’s mind-numbing what Eric Drew has been through.
The former Los Gatos High School quarterback and runway model was diagnosed with leukemia seven years ago. A hospital lab technician stole his credit cards before he went into surgery. After that, credit card companies first blanketed him with cards he didn’t want, then with threatening letters saying he owed them thousands of dollars. He thought his life was over, and even if survived, he was afraid he was financially ruined because of identity theft.
But last week, the 40-year-old Drew announced he’d had a stroke of good fortune.
He settled with TransUnion, a credit reporting company in Chicago, one of six banks and credit card companies he sued under fair-credit and consumer-protection laws. All Drew would say from his bed at O’Connor Hospital in San Jose – a small grin on his face – was that the money was “considerable” and “unprecedented.”
Full story- Mercury News
Comment: this case, which is included in the 2004 chronology of breaches [pdf] had been the first prosecution under HIPAA but did not result in a conviction because the employee of Seattle Cancer Care Alliance pleaded guilty.