Skipton apologises for revealing thousands of customer account details

The UK’s fourth largest building society has had to apologise after what has been called a “third party printing error” left thousands of customers’ names, account numbers and balances printed on the back of other people’s statements.
 
Over 3,000 Skipton customers were sent statements containing the details of other customers on the reverse. However, as the details belonged to passbook account holders, not enough information was disclosed to put accounts at risk.
 
Passbook accounts need a signature for withdrawals and are also not accessible online.
 
A spokeswoman for the building society was at pains to point out that the error only affected 3% of its 108,000-strong mailing list.
 
She added: “This did not include the other customers' address, date of birth or other identifying details. The risk to affected customers is negligible because of this. Nevertheless, we have written to those affected to apologise and to reassure them that the correspondence contained insufficient information to enable any unauthorised transactions on their accounts.”
 
Skipton also confirmed that they have offered to change the account numbers of any customers seeking additional peace of mind.
 
According to the building society, the FSA has been made aware of the error.
 
Skipton Building Society garnered attention recently when they announced a significant hike in their SVR, from 3.5% to 4.95%, scrapping their guarantee that the rate would be no more than 3% above the base rate, which is currently held at a record low of 0.5%.

Source: Debt Management Today