Wells Fargo sent DataBreaches.net the following statement about the breach reported in mainstream media earlier today:
Some of our customers with accounts established in South Carolina and Florida may have received in error pages from other customer accounts in their September paper statements. (Note: Online accounts were unaffected by this error.)
The error occurred due to one printer that malfunctioned as September statements were being printed. The malfunctioning printer no longer is in service and won’t be until we are sure we have completely diagnosed and corrected the problem.
We deeply regret that we have let our customers down and are sorry for any inconvenience it has caused.
Though we believe the risk of compromising a customer’s account is low, we are providing all customers whose statements were printed by the malfunctioning printer with one year of free ID Theft Protection.
The printer malfunction that caused this error was unrelated to the recent conversion of Wachovia stores to Wells Fargo.
We are not disclosing the number of customers affected, but one affected customer is one too many.
We are sending correct statements to customers, and we are also contacting them with information on how to sign up for one year of free identity theft protection.