Reply #22: Automatic Data Processing gave out lists of shareholders to thieves

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/08/business/08data.html?ex=1310011200&en=79dd3b9ff487b702&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

(free registration or try www.bugmenot.com)

Automatic Data Processing, the world's biggest paycheck processor, said yesterday that its brokerage services unit gave out lists of shareholders in various companies to an "unauthorized party" pretending to be officers of public companies.

The company gave the impersonator the information from November 2005 to February this year, the vice president for marketing at the brokerage services unit, Dorothy Friedman, said yesterday in an e-mail statement. Automatic Data is based in Roseland, N.J. Its brokerage services group is in Edgewood, N.Y.

The lists included investor names, addresses and the number of company shares held at brokerage firms that are clients of Automatic Data. They did not contain account numbers, Social Security numbers or the identities of brokers holding the shares, Ms. Friedman said.

Shares of Automatic Data fell $1.40, or 3.1 percent, to $44.01.

...more...