Household HSBC Watch

By John Leyden, Published Thursday 23rd June 2005 10:13 GMT: An undercover reporter was able to buy the details thousands of UK banking accounts, password particulars and credit cards numbers from crooked call centre workers in India, The Sun reports.

The paper says one of its journalists bought details of 1,000 UK banking customers from an IT worker in Delhi for £4.25 each. He was also able to buy the numbers of credit cards and account passwords. An unnamed security expert hired by the paper verified that the details were genuine. The information sold could be readily exploited by ID thieves to apply for credit cards or loans under assumed identities or to simply loot compromised accounts. The call centre worker bragged that he could sell up to 200,000 account details each month.

The Sun handed over a dossier on its investigation to the City of London Police. A police spokeswoman confirmed that it had launched on investigation into the case.

Amicus, the union, said the case highlighted possible data protection risks about moving financial services overseas. “Companies that have offshore jobs need to reflect on their decision and the assumption that cost savings benefiting them and their shareholders outweigh consumer confidentiality and confidence,” Dave Fleming, senior finance officer, told the BBC.