LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles Firemen’s CU reported an “extremely small percentage” of member files were not moved properly during a recent relocation, raising the possibility some members’ personal data may have been left unguarded.
The credit union stressed there is no reason to believe anyone gained unauthorized access to the files – which contained members’ names, addresses, telephone numbers, account numbers and Social Security numbers – but to be on the safe side it has offered free subscriptions to a credit monitoring to the affected members and taken other precautions.
LA Firemen’s CU notified these members of the issue in a letter signed by president and CEO Mike Mastro, a copy of which has been obtained by Credit Union Journal. “Please be assured that we do not believe your personal information has been compromised.” Later it added, “While we have no indication your personal information has been misused, we have taken a number of precautionary measures to make sure you are protected,” Mastro told members.
LAFCU said its staff has been made aware of the incident and enhanced authentication procedures have been put in place as requirements before a transaction can be made on an account or a new account opened. Affected members may choose to be enrolled for two years in IdentitySecure, a credit monitoring service, at no cost, and are allowed to change member numbers, account numbers, passwords, PINs and user names, or receive new checks, all at no cost. In addition, members were informed they can request credit bureaus place a fraud alert on their credit files for 90 days at no cost.
“While this is an isolated incident directly related to our move, we’re carefully reviewing our operational policies and procedures to ensure this type of situation never happens again,” Mastro’s letter to members said.
Dixie Abramian, the credit union’s VP of marketing, told CU Journal management has not been informed by any members that their information has been compromised, but all precautions are being taken. “We wanted to make sure our members were protected so we offered the credit monitoring service,” she said. “We want to make sure they feel safe and secure so we went above and beyond.”
Some members took up the CU on its offer of a subscription to IdentitySecure, but Abramian said she wouldn’t have final numbers for some time because members could sign up in different ways. “But this involves only a small number of members,” she said.
