Scammers steal Countrywide customer information

2 men including a former employee of Countrywide Home Loans have been charged in a scam involving stealing and selling of private information of the customers of the company.

The scammers are suspected to have sold off the information with the aim to make other loan offers to Countrywide customers, as reported by Thom Mrozek, spokesperson for the US Attorney’s office. The FBI too reported that the former employee, Rene L.Rebollo Jr. of Pasadena have been charged with exceeding authorized access to the computer of a financial institution.

The other scammer, Wahid Siddique, of Thousand Oaks, have been accused of fraud in connection with access devices. Both the scammers have been taken into custody.

Rebollo have gotten access to Countrywide client information when he worked as a Senior Financial Analyst for the subprime mortgage division. He is suspected to have downloaded information of 20,000 customers on a weekly basis for the past 2 years.

According to Susan Martin, spokeswoman for Countrywide, about 19,000 customers have been found to have compromised their identities. The victims have received mails with offers for free credit monitoring services for 2 years, but none of them appeared to be a victim of identity fraud. Rebollo is said to have made $70,000 from the sale of information of Countrywide customers. If declared guilty by the law, Rebollo would have to face 5 years of federal prison whereas Siddique could face up to 15 years.