Did This Hollywood Dentist Uncover a Security Glitch at Wachovia Bank?
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Banks are having a hard enough time these days without people like Ed Sossen. The Hollywood dentist recently had a friend going out of town and wanted to do him a favor. "He asked me if I could go to the bank and make a deposit for him," Sossen told the Juice. Before he made the trip up to the nearest Wachovia branch -- his friend's bank -- he wanted to check the hours. And that, he says, was how he discovered "a glaring security hole" at Wachovia, his friend's bank.
He dialed 1-800-WACHOVIA. "I was hoping to get through to someone who could tell me when they were open," he said. Instead of a live Wachovia employee, Sossen found a voice prompt instructing him to enter the account number and last four digits of his social security number. He had that information about his friend and punched them in, he says, still hoping to get a human being on the phone.
"It just started giving me balances, last deposits, last withdrawals," he says. "I didn't want this information -- they just gave it to me!"
Sossen says he thought this must have been some mistake, some technical glitch. "I didn't even enter any kind of PIN number or anything." Still curious, he found an old Wachovia deposit slip from another friend with whom he shares a safety deposit box (so he has her social security number). Sure enough, same results.
"This is an outrage! Think of the identity theft that could happen. These numbers are easy to find. I thought all banks required a code that you make up that's personal."
It turns out, Wachovia accounts don't require personal identification numbers, said a company spokesperson. But they are available, and free, and easy to set up. And they are totally at the discretion of the customer.
Still, the dentist in Hollywood believes this policy violates federal laws requiring banks to secure all the "non-public information" of their clients. And he wants to tell everyone he can about this. To protect them, he says.
"It's my obligation to put a stop to this."
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