Countrywide employee caught stealing identities

Late last week, a former Countrywide Financial Corp. employee and his pal were arrested by the FBI for stealing and selling personal data of mortgage applicants. They estimate that up to 2 million people's identities were compromised by these clowns over a two year period.

The former employee, Rene Rebollo, was a senior financial analyst in Countrywide's subprime lending division, Full Spectrum Lending. His buddy, Wahid Siddiqi, is the one accused of selling the data at $400 to $500 for each batch of "leads." These so-called leads were sold to agents who would solicit the customers for new loans with other mortgage companies.

How did Rebollo take all the personal information? On Sunday evenings, he would copy information on 20,000 people at a time. And the money the two guys got for the personal information amounted to about 2.5 cents per customer.