Ten major banks including Bank of America Corp. and Wachovia Corp. have raised their estimates of a number of clients whose personal account information has been stolen to 500,000 clients residing in New Jersey, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The bank and personal information about these accounts has been sent to a person who later resold it to collection agencies.

The search for the numbers of duped clients whose data have been given to unknown persons goes on as banks come up with more names on their customer lists. "This is far from over," said Detective Sgt. Jay Alpert.
So far there is no evidence pointing to the use of accounts for opening fraudulent credit card accounts or obtaining loans, but the case exemplifies the weakness of the internal controls at financial institutions that entrust their employees with handling this information on a regular basis.

The probe included charges against eight former bank employees including two who worked at Wachovia, one at Bank of America and five who worked at both Commerce Bancorp and PNC.