First, I do agree with the first comment about the situation referring to fraudulent activity, not identity theft. I also agree with the second and third comments about ?Life?. If the punishment could be any more severe, I would agree to that also.

My comment is this: Until the government steps up and starts holding the businesses / persons responsible for the breach, in this case, the system of the business that had the vulnerability, then this type of theft is going to continue until we have a complete and total crisis!

What happens now is the merchants do not have to follow strict rules and regulations on acceptance of debit cards and credit cards, nor do they have to follow rules on securing their computer systems for protection of customer information. Most don?t even ask for identification when doing transactions unless it is an extremely large transaction. The reason being is that FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS are held responsible!! Why should Financial Institutions incur the losses of their stupidity and mistakes??? It makes for very poor relationships with our customers when they think we allowed the breach to our systems. Consumers don?t want to keep their money at banks that would allow that!! IT IS NOT THE BANKS!!! It is the merchants and banks pay for their mistakes! We are so highly regulated that if there is a breach against a bank, I would be very surprised if it was an external breach and not an insider breach. Oh, we also get the privilege of paying these regulators to come and check us for compliance with their rules and regulations!

CONSUMERS: Step up!! Write to your congressman or lobbyist. Start making the responsible parties RESPONSIBLE!!! Banks are already the ?WATCHDOGS? for the government with all the rules and regulations that they impose on us. Let?s start sharing the wealth!

Thank you!

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