Mortgage Broker Sues Lenders in Privacy Breach

Washington Post (04/29/08) P. D1; Nakashima, Ellen
LendingTree has notified customers by letter that a privacy breach recently occurred, exposing such personal data as income and employment history on an undisclosed number of users. In the letter, customers were informed that "several former employees may have helped a handful of mortgage lenders gain access to LendingTree's customer information by sharing confidential passwords with the lenders." The online mortgage broker, which claims to have reached more than 20 million customers, has since filed suit against five Southern California home loan lenders for improperly gaining access to the customer data. LendingTree has also filed suit against a couple of former executives in North Carolina, charging that they shared the passwords with the lenders.