Ya gotta wonder sometimes...

In Canada, there are "5 Big Banks": Toronto-Dominon (TD), Royal Bank (RBC), ScotiaBank, Candian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) and Bank of Montreal (BOM). They earn *HUGE* profits every quarter in the near-billion to billions range. You'd think they could spend a little on security... :rolleyes:

Apparently not in CIBC's case.. errr.. cases.

Case 1:

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Source: The Province

Fax to CIBC: fix the problem, not the blame

The Province

December 2, 2004


The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce shouldn't be surprised if a last minute letter published in newspapers yesterday fails to restore its customers' and the public's trust.

CEO John Hunkin's mea culpa, if that's what it is, appeared only after the bank had been repeatedly and publicly chastised for its bullying response to a serious, possibly unlawful breach of clients' rights.

Indeed, his note has the scent of corporate damage control should these customers take legal action.

In case readers haven't heard; staff from some of the 1,100 CIBC branches of Canada's third largest bank had been faxing a West Virginia, U.S. scrap dealer the confidential financial files of some of its eight million clients.

It was a simple employee error -- likely the press of a wrong button -- but scrapyard owner Wade Peer couldn't get CIBC to look into it, despite trying for three years. That is, until a newspaper broke the story, at which time the bank hastily banned fax use for sending customer data and launched aggressive court action against Peer, claiming he leaked confidential client data and violated our strict privacy laws. Isn't that just what CIBC did? Blaming the messenger -- a smalltime entrepreneur at that -- will only further undermine what little trust Canadians have in corporations that insist on knowing every detail of our lives. Let this be a message, not just to CIBC but to all financial institutions, that they'd better strengthen the safeguards they were trusted to implement to protect the privacy of clients.

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Original Story

Morons! They try to blame him and accuse him of violating their clients privacy. When they violated it in the first place by not having proper procedures in place to ensure that faxes were received! How hard is this!?

Case 2:

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Source: CBC Montreal

ATM gives customers Canadian Tire money
Last Updated Thu, 02 Dec 2004 08:54:19 EST

MONCTON - A CIBC cash machine started dispensing Canadian Tire money at a mall outside of Moncton, N.B.

Kayla Peters, 16, said she was shocked when she withdrew $60 on Nov. 29. She received two $20 bills and two $2 bills in Canadian Tire money.
The ATM spat out Canadian Tire bills ranging from 10 cents to $2.

"I just stood there for a second wondering what I should do, but then I heard some other people talking about it and it turned out I wasn't the only one."

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce officials say four people have been reimbursed for the mistake.

"It clearly must have come in from maybe some of our business customers who package up their own cash," said Rob McLeod, spokesperson for the bank. "We're still tracking down exactly what the source was."

McLeod says CIBC has confiscated the fake money as part of its investigation.

The ATM spat out 11 Canadian Tire bills in denominations ranging from 10 cents to $2.

"It appears to be a very isolated incident," said McLeod.

It's the second recent embarrassment to involve CIBC. Last week, a junkyard owner in West Virginia revealed he was suing CIBC because it failed to stop faxing him private financial information about its clients.

The bank said it knew about the problem and thought it had been fixed in 2002. CIBC has ordered its employees to stop using the bank's internal fax system to send customer information between offices.

Written by CBC News Online staff

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In case you are unaware, Canadian Tire, a long-time institution in Canada, gives back customers (who pay cash or with debit cards) Canadian Tire money that can be used towards purchases. They have been doing this for years. In fact, older versions of the money are collectible and worth more than the "face value".

What both of these highlight is the need for CIBC to get off it's fat profit duff and get back to simple basics: employ procedures that have to be followed. e.g., when sending a fax, verify that the sender received it. If not, check the number in the machine and report as to where it went to and have the number reprogrammed. Do a followup to ensure it's fixed.

In the money situation, I'm rather surprised that technology isn't employed to verify that deposits are legitimate and that money deposited isn't counterfeit. There are machines that can do this and technology can be employed very well to do this.

Sigh. I know who I WON'T be banking with in the near future...

how are they going to press charges agaisnt someone when they were sending him stuff...I hope he turns back and sues them for years of harassment becasue of all those incomming faxes.

Being a Canadian...

I HATE THE CIBC!!!!!!!!! :mad:

After doing my banking with them over the last 20 odd years they refused to remortgage my house just recently...which I have equity in as I purchased at the right time.....due to the fact ...and I am guessing......that I am a single mother.

Since then I have switched to a local Credit Union....and the service is incredible compared to the service I have received over the years at CIBC.

And after talking (bitching) about it to anyone who would listen.....this is pretty normal at the CIBC as other people have had the same experience.

GOOD ON THEM....EGG ON THEIR FACE!!!!!!!! ;)

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Morons! They try to blame him and accuse him of violating their clients privacy. When they violated it in the first place by not having proper procedures in place to ensure that faxes were received! How hard is this!?

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MS M ..You are so right.

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A CIBC cash machine started dispensing Canadian Tire money at a mall outside of Moncton, N.B.

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When I heard this on the CBC last night ....I had tears in my eyes...from laughing so hard..

WTF is going on at the CIBC

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Sigh. I know who I WON'T be banking with in the near future...

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Good move M MS

To the CIBC

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :flip:

Sincerly

MLF

Wouldn't it have been a much nicer story if that wrong number was of a Kinko's somewhere-close-to-nowhere and a fax machine started spitting out pages after pages of confidential information?

MsM I don't know if you can confirm this or not, but our CS Instructor told us that Human Resources Canada couldn't replace her SIN number because every number has a set meaning... so if somebody else picked up at your local fax store a copy of your SIN number you won't get another one... but you might wake up one morning to collection calls from CC agencies about those many, many $Ks spent...

Anybody want to try a class action suit?

I can sort of understand the fax problem. They usually have a directory of frequently used numbers. If you put one in incorrectly, and it is a valid fax number you will get confirmation.

I am sure that many of us have populated tables, arrays and files of standing data. You list the data afterwards and tick it off against the original documentation?

The length of time that this went on for and the failure to remedy it is disgraceful. It also shows a weakness in their business process, as presumably something did not happen as a result of the fax going to the wrong place..............that should have been picked up?

I once had a fax machine repeatedly dialling my direct line at the office. It would disconnect and re-dial before I could transfer the call to our fax. In the end I had to divert all my calls to our fax machine, before I managed to trap one :cool: I think some of my colleagues must have thought I had finally flipped when they called me and got our fax machine burbling at them :D


The cash machine one I don't understand. Over here money is counted THEN WEIGHED as a confirmation. Surely the Tire Money weighs different from real currency? It should have triggered the counterfeit detector anyway?

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I can sort of understand the fax problem. They usually have a directory of frequently used numbers. If you put one in incorrectly, and it is a valid fax number you will get confirmation.

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Uh... the fax machine actually would be one I'd have trouble with as well. Given that the area code would have been outside of Canada (they have different area codes compared to here) you'd think they'd know, especially the person who inputted it. That said, it might have been a dyslexic moment but after 3 years of receiving complaints from the guy!?

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The cash machine one I don't understand. Over here money is counted THEN WEIGHED as a confirmation. Surely the Tire Money weighs different from real currency? It should have triggered the counterfeit detector anyway?

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Thing is, I don't believe that's an accurate indicator of fraud money versus real. It's an estimate to the number of bills in a stack. I know there are machines that will flip through them counting them and some that actually checks the bills (and they should be checking them given the apparent number of counterfeits in the system sometimes).

The weight is similar as the paper is similar but not quite. Given enough wear and tear, I'm sure some bills lose their "true weight" so there is room for error but perhaps there should be other methods other than weigh to determine the actual content of deposits.

Ah, I see. Over here you are not allowed to produce vouchers, coupons etc that are remotely like genuine banknotes, so the weighing procedure is more reliable. I am told that it is pretty accurate as the notes do not vary very much during their lives, they just appear to shrink due to the creases. Also they are manually or mechanically counted first.

It sounds as if someone loaded the ATM with a customer's deposit that had not been checked? I would guess from a night safe.

Yes, I did wonder about the area code, I wonder if it had something to do with the fax being a toll free account?

But very sloppy process not verifying the input and not fixing the problem when they were told. There also should have been incomplete transactions I would have thought.

The fax machine could be a proxy device hanging off their network with a telco interface as well. And highly automated. Heck I have seen some with internet connections....

Craziness.