Starbucks to Employees: We're Sorry...Again

According to Starbucks Gossip, 97,000 current and former Starbucks employees received a letter in the mail last weekend informing them that a company laptop has gone missing and the hard drive contained oodles of personal information, including their addresses and social security numbers. To assuage employees concerns, The Mermaid is offering the affected people a free credit report. One commenter on the blog is looking on the bright side, however. "Go ahead and steal my identity. You'll get your car repo'd and your salary garnished!"

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By Brad in News on November 24, 2008 5:30 PM

Comments [rss]

jdavin

This could have been avoided just by using BitLocker on their laptop. Which should be a no-brainer for a laptop with 97000 SSNs.

bilco

Wow a free credit report! Find out immediately when you've been robbed. Or not - stealing SSNs is a much more subtle ID theft and the real result may not be detected for a quite while.

Recently, the busted a company for using stolen SSNs to register undocumented workers. The free credit report won't help with that one. When undetected, it will just result in their SS money going into your account - which sounds good, but will really create a big, big mess in your SS history. And income tax trail, since they now link SS with IRS records.

Free lattes for all! That oughta do it.