About a quarter million Comcast subscribers had their data stolen from debt collector

Comcast says data on 237,703 of its customers was in fact stolen in a cyberattack on a debt collector it was using, contrary to previous assurances it was given that it was unaffected by that intrusion. That collections agency, Financial Business and Consumer Solutions aka FBCS, was compromised in February, and according to a …

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things...

First: Did a quarter million Comcast subscribers actually go so late on their bills that it made sense to send them to a collection agency? Or is this like CenturyLink calling me and threatening me with collections because they claimed I was 2 weeks late on a bill, for the first time? (I had paid over the phone with a CenturyLink rep, but apparently it didn't go through and they didn't tell me. That phone call was the first sign that they hadn't received the money.)

Second: Never provide your social security number to any company outside of the banking industry. Period. Your doctor's office doesn't need it, and your phone/broadband provider definitely doesn't!

[mikus]

Re: Two things...

It was probably the history of ANYONE ever across time that has ever been delinquent with comcast that they sold the bill to those guys to collect on.

What do bill collectors know about IT security? The owner's kid runs the bill payment website from his house. They're akin to used car salesmen and 20x worse for the nature of doing bill collections.

[druck]

Re: Two things...

I once went with the cheapest car insurance quote I found on-line, and they sent me the policy details and the date when the first payment of the direct debit would be taken. A week before this date I got a letter from a debt collection agency saying the payment was overdue. I called the insurance company and they apologised for the 'mistake', it was still within the 14 day cooling off period for on-line sales, so I took the opportunity while on the phone to cancel the policy immediately, and went with a reputable firm.

[chivo243]

Bill collectors, used or any car sales associate, bounty hunters, cold callers, solar panel sales associates - same bolt of cloth.

[dipole]

I remember administering a group for a particular cause.

An Idiot accussed our organisation of having sold their mail details onward and that they were being spammed.

I had to point out to them that no commercial organisation wants the mailing list comprised of angry, engaged assertive activists. They might pay to remove those email addresses from their own mailing lists but would never see us as the type of customer they want.

Here somebody might actually pay to learn who they should not be seeking custom from.

[Groo The Wanderer]

The lowest budget scam in the world is running a debt collection agency. You buy debt for pennies on the dollar and harass the vendor's former customers without mercy, making vague (and often illegal or unenforceable) threats, hoping to collect at least 15 cents on the dollar, which will usually net you a 50% profit on what you paid to buy the debt. You expect such a scummy business to know about or be willing to investigate in "security" for information about what it sees as the idiots that owe them money? They don't give a rat's ass about the "customer" - they're just a spreadsheet input.