This is the sort of letter you never want to get from your mortgage company:

“We are writing to let you know that a computer tape containing information about you and your mortgage account with [name of mortgage company] has been lost while being transported by DHL courier service to a credit reporting company.”

The letter goes on to give regrets, offer 90 free days of credit monitoring service, and explain that the tape included names, account information, payment history, and Social Security numbers.

It’s jarring to get a letter like this, but not particularly surprising. What was a little surprising, though, was that everyone — everyone! — I mentioned this to on the day I got the letter had at least one “oh, yeah, we got one like that last month” type of story.

Hazard of living in the Information Age, I suppose. What to do? Well, you can start by getting the free credit report to which you’re legally entitled. You can explore this FTC page about identity theft. You can Google all day long on the issue. Most of all (and probably most effective of all): You can simply hope you don’t get snared in the net.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 22nd, 2005 at 9:47 am and is filed under This 'n' That.