On June 27, 2013, a laptop containing personal information of customers of Buckeye Title Loans of California, LLC and Cash Central of California LLC was stolen from a locked vehicle in a smash-and-grab incident. Other items stolen in the incident included credit cards, a wallet and other personal property, which raises the question of whether all those items were clearly visible to anyone walking by the car, and if so, why?
Law enforcement was notified and has been investigating, but to date, the laptop has not been recovered.
Now the Ohio-headquartered BTLC and Utah-headquartered CCC are notifying affected customers of the theft and offering them a free year of credit monitoring services through Experian ProtectMyID Alert. Customers were also offered ExtendCARE fraud resolution services for after the ProtectMyID service expires.
Although both firms offered customers free services, they state that they have no reason to believe that customer data on the laptop has been accessed:
“Though it is possible that your name, address, bank account information, and/or social security number may have been or may be accessed, at this time we have no reason to believe that the data on the laptop has been accessed. “
They do not explain why they think they have no reason to believe the data have been accessed.
The employee involved in the matter has been disciplined for violating the firm’s policy:
The removal of any laptop containing the personal information of our customers was against our company’s data security policy and the involved employee has been reprimanded. We have no reason to believe that this type of incident would occur in the future.
The letter is silent on the question of whether the data should have been encrypted and whether BTLC and CCC are taking steps to encrypt all PII on laptops in the future.
Note: This post replaces a previous version that only identified BTLC. Both BTLC and CCC submitted identical letters to the California Attorney General’s Office.
Update 1: The CCC notification seems to have been removed from the AG’s website. Only the BTLC notification remains. I wonder why.
Update 2: I heard back from California as to the disappearing CCC notification. It turns out that there were three (not two) entities involved in this breach, and they deleted the CCC one and consolidated all three under Buckeye Check Cashing of California LLC. You can access all three breach notification letters here. They’re identical in wording, but the three firms are:
Buckeye Check Cashing of California LLC
7001 Post Road, Suite 200
Dublin, Ohio 43016
Buckeye Title Loans of California LLC
7001 Post Road, Suite 200
Dublin, Ohio 43016
Cash Central of California LLC
84 East 2400 North
North Logan, Utah 84341