I work in IT as a "Marketing Guy." However, when I try to explain to people in IT what marketing is (as opposed to what they think it should be) they get confused. I think this might help:

Watch the whole episode at abc.com

Before any of you freak out, my Mom LOVED watching this video at Side Track tonight!.

I received a letter today from CollegeInvest, which is a student loan company I used years ago. During a move to a new office, they lost a backup hard drive that had my personal information on it.

They lost the drive on March 28th. The letter was dated April 21. I just got it (It had to be forwarded from the address they had on file). The people who have this hard drive have had over a month to try and get the information off of it.

CollegeInvest explains the situation here:
http://collegeinvest.com/pdf/dataprivacyinformation.pdf

I work for an IT company. My desk sits right above a huge datacenter. It troubles me that CollegeInvest does not have a better back-up plan than putting files on a hard drive and throwing it in the back of a moving truck. As a financial company they should be a little more secure than that.

They did give me a year in "Triple Advantage" so I can continue to check my credit, and hopefully nothing will happen. Still, I am a little pissed at them right now.