Breach, Data Security

State Farm employee uses customer credit cards, gets fired

An employee of automobile insurer State Farm was fired after making purchases with customer credit cards, ultimately compromising their personal data.

How many victims? 687.

What type of personal information? Credit card details, among other personal information.

What happened? A State Farm employee was fired after it was discovered they made purchases using customer credit cards.   

What was the response? State Farm's Internal Audit Department opened an investigation. The auto insurer sent letters to alert all customers who made payments through the former employee. The employee was fired.

Details: State Farm officials were contacted on Aug. 4 regarding fraudulent charges found on a customer credit card after a payment was made to their insurance policy on Aug. 2. The customer made the payment through the former employee, who worked out of an after-hours call center. The investigation revealed that 11 customers had credit card information misused by the former employee. 

Quote: “Accordingly, out of an abundance of caution, State Farm also is notifying the other 687 customers who made a payment with this employee, although we have no information to indicate (for the overwhelming majority of these individuals) that their information was misused in any way,” said Debra Vasey, State Farm vice president of operations.

Source: oag.state.md.us, “State Farm Mutual Automobile Company (PDF),” Sept. 9, 2013.

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