Snips from Joseph Showl
On May 7, 2005, at 12:02 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> but if this recent incident is true that they
> handle 5 million pickups a year and have dropped the ball 4 times,
No evidence was presented with this outlandish statement to back it up.
There are few in the industry who take this statement as anything but a
PR Statement.
> None
> of us in our profession (or anyone elses) that handles that kind of
> volume of transactions with so few mistakes.
That is why so many people are offended by the statement, as it is
beyond credibility. Will the 99.999% accuracy end up in the category
of
"I am not a crook!" and "I did not have sex, with that woman!"
Reporters love
it when you throw out a quote like that! The fact that CNN is already
vested
in this story, may prove such a statement an error in judment.
> Before anyone goes to look
> to fix what's broke, I'd be very careful about tweaking a system with
> that kind of accuracy.
There is no system with that kind of accuracy.
Whether anyone can improve on the accuracy is a question left to the
open market.
Clients who feel that their interests are not being served can move.
(Well they could
if Hostage Fees were not impacting the decision. ) If Hostage Fees
were removed from
the industry you would get the real feel for how clients think they are
being served. No
company would need Hostage Fees if they were 99.999% accurate.
The real issue here is that tremendous damage has been done to
companies like Bank of
America, Times Warner, Choicepoint and others when privileged
information
is lost or stolen. As publicly traded companies theses losses may
trigger Sarbanes Oxley
violations. These losses could result in large fines. Some of these
companies suffered loss
of value in their stock value and certainly their public image is
damaged for some period of time.
The amount of time being spent to try to recover from these disasters
is a real cost. What
about the shareholders of these companies.
Why did we get so upset about Enron and Arthur Andersen? They only
destroyed a minute
portion of the tens of thousands of boxes of records. Probably 99.999%
of their records were
untouched. Why did Arthur Andersen suffer so greatly from this event?
They only showed lack
of judgment one time. They had a history of thousands and thousands of
audits with total and
complete integrity? We are struggling to grasp how we should judge
these events?
Public disclosure of this loss should have been made immediately. Even
with the
California Law requiring public disclosure within 48 hours certain
executives arrogantly
refused to disclose the loss of information that could destroy
thousands of hard working
individual's credit standing. As a private citizen we can't even
comprehend how to resolve
this issue. Do we close all our Credit Card accounts, change
banks..........Who knows?
But the fact that our risk exposure was delayed for months was a
critical error in judgment.
If this had not happened to Senators and Congressmen and high
government officials
then we would not have heard about the most recent batch of problems.
Now CNN has
made people aware of the risk we all now face; and, USA Today has made
this front
page news. Maybe new legislation will arise to protect the citizens of
this country the way
citizens in Europe and Canada are protected.
But if companies break the Law and refuse to make public the loss of
information that has
huge financial impact for citizens ill-prepared to defend themselves
from Identity Theft, then
you will continue to see outrage. Large companies deciding they are
above the law and
that they don't have to act to protect the rights of those people whose
financial information is
on those tapes is news worth investigating. All those who made
decisions that critical financial
information has been lost (with limitless ramifications) but let's keep
that information from the
public and the regulators, have career exposure. From the executives
at the bank and the credit
reporting agency who did not react immediately to protect their
customers' interests, there may
be criminal liability and possibly financial liability for any damage
that might result.
If a batch of tapes is lost with 1.2 million Federal employees complete
financial information and then
600,000 citizens files are lost in another event is that really just
two events; or is it 1,800,000 incidents?
If I am one of those tapes I consider my exposure as a unique event.
If I lose $20.00 driving across town
will it be on the front page? If a Brinks Delivery with $2,000,000.00
is lost on the same route, is that news?
It was pretty gutsy for Times Warner to report on their own loss. My
respect for CNN and Times Warner
has risen. My respect for their journalistic integrity and their
management's ethics has grown because
someone at the top had to decide to air a story that could embarrass
them but they did the right thing.
They made a responsible decision and their employees can take
appropriate steps. Hopefully this example
will lead others to make the same ethical choice. If records are lost
that can damage third parties or the company
itself, the right thing is to make full and complete disclosure.
Hugh
Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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