This certainly speaks volumes about how this company could care less about their customers confidentiality. Just how to make a quick buck and create a lousy cop out when they screw up. I would hope that all potential customers go elsewhere with their business. There are plenty of reputable companys out there.

Anyone who saw the movie "Catch Me If You Can" knows that low-level, underpaid employees are an easy target. Give 'em a few bucks and they'll hand over anything. (I hasten to add I have not done this personally.)

Hold on. Not intentional. They were hacked.

lending tree has know about this longer than 2006 they don't really care about anyones infor. Bottom line the money is at stake

I am appalled that lending tree is not offering credit monitoring to those customers that were affected by this. I have used lending tree in the past and have been swamped with calls from other lenders, which now explains it. I think lending tree should step up to the plate and do what's right. I will not use their service again for lack of customer satisfaction and carelessness on their part.

Sounds like a case of social engineering...lol When are employers going to learn that they are responsible for the action of their employees?

Also when are we as consumers going to put our foot down and start suing this retarded companies for leaking our personal information? We have to do something about this people!

I obtained a loan in 2006 via a referral from Lending Tree - then I lost my job, and now I am in foreclosure. Take my identity, PLEASE!!

no, they were not hacked CFO out of Morrisville. They failed to implement security precautions to prevent this kind of thing from happening,
ie-changing log ins and passwords immediately after an employmee has left the company.

I had my identity stolen after receiving such a letter from Circuit City. What a nightmare! The best thing I ever did was to sign up for Lifelock. Believe me - it's worth it!

THEY WERE HACKED!

Did you even read the report?

They did not follow basic uid/pwd security policies.

Their idiots!

Lending tree was careless with its branches and now they're cracking. I hope they shrivel up and lose their bark.

Not intentional? Hacked? Get real, how many people would let someone keep the key to their home and not re-key the locks! That is what this company did, let the former employees walk away with the key and they did nothing to keep them from using it.

I am so glad that Lending Tree got burned. ( I am sorry for the consumer who has been injured)Some of the employees are noting but a bunch of strong armed thugs and they are protected by management. You can have a disagreement with someone but to slander that person is wrong. Yet all Lending Tree cares about is money. They have no integrity as far as I'm concerned.

**The rouge insider employees are our biggest threat**. As a 1099 contractor (by choice), I am subjected to numerous "background checks" everytime I accept a work assignment. People I don't know are privy to my bank account number(s), DOB, SSN, address, ZIP driver's license number, etc., all in the name of a "security background check." But what about them? I never know who sees this, how many people see it, and what is done with it.

We all need to stop handing over so much information, as we can clearly see what's happening to it. And the banks don't care: they'll just offer you a "service" for $12.95/month to see your own credit report. It's all a joke.

LendingTree is unbelievable. I cannot wait to see a class action form out of this in a year's time when all the customers realize that their information has been compromised for alternative dubious measures.

Anyone in the mortgage biz knows Lending Tree is a joke. The only people on the inside are beginners or unexperienced LO's from companies that want the newbies to try to get biz. They usually also have no clue. A local mortgage lender is the best way to go.

i've used lendingtree's service and i have nothing to say but good things. i expected to get offers and i did choose a great deal

Don't be so defensive of them CFO. They are liable for any identity theft that happens to any of their customers. Sure it wasn't intentional, but they passively allowed it to happen by having insufficient security. It shouldn't take a breach of this magnitude for a company to "promptly enhance the security" of their system. It's also deplorable that their reaction is essentially "oh well, too bad. check your annual free report." Since they let this happen they should compensate every customer they had during that time period for pulling a comprehensive credit report. Perhaps the inevitable class-action lawsuit from the first ID theft victim tracing the breach back to Lending Tree will wise them up some for the future.

And DHS wants us to put all of our information into a National Identification system for the Real ID. No wonder so many states are fighting against it. All that information in one database opens us all up to fraud. Not to mention employees who have a bone to pick or upset about their pay rate could use it to make some $$ on the side.

I worked for a bank for 3 years that worked almost 100% with Lending Tree. Aside from Lending Tree selling it to several more banks than stated (you click 4, they send it to 10), they also sell the incomplete applications as well (you decide against submitting to them, but they track your typing). Further, the boom in mortgages brought some shady bankers out of the woodwork and MANY of them took their files when they were fired for other things. The bank didn't keep a close eye on it and hundreds of names and information walked out with the employee.

STOP believing that you can find this magic bank that can make your rate turn into 2% because you will it to be that way! Go to your local bank (maybe even a few other local ones) and keep your information safe! You are stupid to believe that just because something is online that you are getting a great deal!

I had great luck with Lending Tree, I would reccomend them highly.

Enough is enough!

CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS TO ALL COMPANIES WHO MISUSE CONSUMER DATA!

Let's start to put these people in jail and show them who is in charge here. Plain and simple it is fraud, looks like hell is going to busy for many years to come.

It just goes to show that you still need someone you can trust to help you with making one of the most important financial decisions of your life, not some faceless company on the internet.

LendingTree is great and offers great deals! I would use lendingtree again and again.

This is typical of the banking, medical and insurance industries. Having spent 17 years in real estate financing ($500k - $5.0B), I have seen the lack of information control at almost every company involved in finance. Conduits/brokers (lending tree, etc), banks, insurance companies (they have significant real estate & mortgage holdings), etc. These companies knowingly violate OCC, FDIC, OTS and SEC regulations daily with unconcerned senior mgmt. If they make money, your security and well being does not matter. Medical also contributes w/the Medcos and Delta Dentals practically handing out your private information to make a $.

Handle this by (a)don't do business w/these companies (b) tell your representatives to have the regulators do their jobs and prosecute, no hand slaps, $500K fines and jail time. The OCC, which regulates most US banks, rarely does anything. The companies, like Lending Tree and Medco, play loose with your info. In 17 years, I have seen only 2 companies secure info properly, Prudential Insurance Company & Pacifc Crest Bank (no longer in business).

What does it matter if a couple of other banks stole their information? Anyone who is dumb enough to give their personal information to a lead company is agreeing to have it sold possible hundreds of times.They say they have 4 lenders compete. The reality is they charge 4 lenders alot of money for the leads initially. This means the consumers pays more than they need to for the loan because the cost of obtaining the lead is built into the mortgage costs. Then after a period of time the leads get sold to a alot more for a cheaper price. Then later on they are sold for even less to a third wave. This will go on until nobody will pay anything for the lead.

This is a conspiracy to obtain information from any source necessary in order to add to the growing numbers of individuals on the data base creating This personal information is then possibly sold for income. This is one of many breached situations since year 2000...

Hey,When it comes down to my privacy rights and my credit info,I am not wating a year to file a class action law suite lets get this tennis match on now.

What has transpired here is just the tip of a very large iceberg. The fact is say 40 years ago almost all
data was stored in real physical filing cabinets. Now
with storage capacities of drives increasing and the sizes of these devices becoming smaller, a person could steal millions of records in one shot. But it gets better. All of this data is generally nicely formatted and very easy to search through (query) to find anything a person wants in a relatively short amount time.

If all personal data encrypted then this would become
a more difficult task or impossible. But I believe this to be the exception and not the rule in the business world.

Don't overreact, it sounds a lot worse then it really is

What most people don't know is that your information can be bought from the credit bureaus. I'm a loan officer for a broker and we have a problem with what we call trigger leads. These leads are purchased from the credit bureau by companies simply based on you applying for a mortgage. The credit bureau will sell your phone number and address to companies. We have customers that get calls about 2 weeks after they apply at our office from lenders that they haven't even heard of. As far as lending tree goes, I don't think they are a bad company but it seems that they had some security issues. It doesn't surprise me that former employees that were probably making 100% commission on loans and either couldn't hack it in sales or got fired sold this info. I've seen a lot of disgruntled employees turn over in the last year and it wasn't anything the company did. You get these problems when the economy is down and you can't find experienced people to do loans. Your only option is to hire idiots!!

Honestly I have never heard more ignorant ranting. First of all if you read the article it reads: "Given that data was accessed from 2006 to early 2008, it can be INFERRED that passwords used by former employees remained operational for months or even years after their employment was terminated, generally considered poor security practice…”

This whole paragraph is speculation not fact. Past employees like IT personal can get fired and hack there way into a system they are familiar with fairly easy. I know someone who has 7 years Mortgage experience that works at LendingTree and soon as you quit or are fired you are escorted out by security and all your passwords are locked even from management. Do you really think they are that stupid? Who ever did this knew what they were doing. The people you need to be mad at are the little hacker thieves and these back alley lenders that worked with them obtaining your information illegally! Going after LendingTree because they have the courtesy to even step up to the plate and tell you what happened is pathetic mob mentality and plain ignorant. They could have hid it and let people find out the hard way.. Do you even know what “inferred” means Georgia? Didn’t think so; go back to your soaps.

I got the best rate ever (with a Lending Tree co.), and I have dealt with local co.s as well. What makes you think local peole are, or do not employ dishonest employees?

I had allmost complted the application when i decided against it. However,when I started to remove the critical information, I couldn't. They must have a track and lock system because they respnded and I did not use them, I went local. I just hope they didn't sell my incomplete appliation. I wll start a class action if I find that my information was compremized.

what this incident signals is a need for national reform aimed at policing the security standards each finance, insurance, healthcare company implements. since these organizations hold such a vast amount of sensitive data, why not create a protocol that each existing company or new company looking to provide these basic services has to abide to. SAS 70 compliance is one, but it needs to address specifically consumer private information. Has anyone ever looked at the cost an individual victim of identity fraud has to incur to clear his/her name? i'm sure costly from $$ and time standpoint. shame on Lending Tree for not having the proper tools in place to monitor this kind of activity. Extremely smart and bright people spend their lives developing technology to monitor this kind of stuff and Lending Tree with the amount of money I'm sure they make didn't bother to spend a small amount of dough to secure this...its not even technology, its just basic employee management..who ever the security administrator or provider for Lending Tree has to be crucified.. I'd hate to be a victim..unless I am and don't know it yet...

I am filing a class action lawsuit!!! Ok...anyone know of a GOOD lawyer who is good with this kind of case. I need EXPERIENCE! I have been harrassed by loan officers every since I did business with them in 2007. LIKE YOU SAID>>>ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Contact if you know of a good attorney...mrstywoods@hotmail.com

i work with one of the lenders who is an assosiate with lending tree and i often have my clients inform me that they have more than 10 people calling them up. Well actually lending tree is supposed to get this info out to just 4 brokerage companies..So how do the others call??
TO BE HONEST I THINK IT IS AN INTERNAL SCAM AND ALL THE TOP MANAGEMENT WITH LENDING TREE WOULD BE INVOLVED JUST TO MAKE MORE MONEY OFF ONE DEAL!!

I believe that the refinance I got in 2006 through Lending Tree must have been one of those unofficial lenders. The loanwas not as represented (at ALL), and the company disappeared 24 HOURS after the escrow closed.. Ya think? Is there recourse? Please advise.

Lending Tree must care a little. They sent a letter out to everyone who requested a quote during that time frame to let them know. There is more info in the letter that was not in this article. You can get this info from anywhere. Not just from companies you have used. Before attacking a company that was taken advantage of mabe you should worry about all the info that can be gotten about you for free or by paying 10 bucks. Welcome to the world wide web! Everything is out there...for a price.

Quit whining, get off of the message boards and get a job. LendingTree provides a fantastic service for those who otherwise may not be able to find a loan.

lending tree is always the right choice just to give an example what if your bank with whom you are having your saving or checkings account or if your employer is hacked.nothing to blame on lending tree.

Consumers need some sort of legislation to protect us from negilgence like this.

The FBI really needs to go full speed into this at 100%. They complained today that they are getting way too busy with this. It's no excuse. This goes way beyond just plain lying to potential, and signed up customers. In general, the mortgage industry needs to be investigated via the RICO statues. Nothing less will do.

Screw them. I agree...I used my "free" reports when I prepared for my mortgage less than 12 months ago by verifying my credit reports...I DON'T HAVE A "FREE" way to check my credit report. It may not have been intentional, but they are responsible for the behavior of their own employees and should have a fudiciary duty to make their mistakes whole. BUNCH OF CRAP!

Most lending places who have been giving out these easy loans are now having major problems just look at the market and 1st qtr returns most have come in way below what they had promised share holders some are in so deep they may have to be bailed out and you know who ends up with that chore you and me. I knew something wasn't right when I heard one of there ad's and the person had refi's two or three times in under 7 years they were borrowing on what they hoped was prices going up at a very fast rate. People on both coast who have been in the housing market are losing jobs after 20 years. It used to be you went and got a loan then went to a builder and he built you what you wanted now they just build them and hope some one will buy them that is how Las Vegas has something like 30,000 new homes not bought and some one is going to pay for it and if it is like the last time we are going to make aome rich people a lot richer when they sell them for a dime on the thousand remember the early 90's even set up a gov. body to give this stuff away at almost nothing but some one always has to pay no one rides for free. mad

Stay away from Lending Tree. They scammed me last year. They sent my credit info to a Florida based firm that ran unauthorized credit inquiries on my account and refused to reverse the inquiry. Lending Tree's Fraud Investigation dept is a JOKE. Seriously. Can you believe that their email to me was 'verbatim' what the fraudulent inquirer said to me independently? Clearly, there was collusion. I sent them a Warning that I would refer them to the DOJ, and 2 of the bureaus removed the inquiries suo moto. However, after that, the inquiring company called me again to demand to know why I had abandoned the credit application. Clearly, a scam through and through. Lending Tree is nothing but a shady scam and an entity that we must all stay away from!!

I had to save a loan for a client who went to lending tree and had her credit pulled 14 times and lowered her score by 40 points. I put her into a portfolio loan with a local bank. Her husband is an attorney....I hope he pursues this.

I think what most of the public is missing here is that lending tree is basically a "lead" company.
The three mortgage companies that "hacked in" were stealing leads that sell from on the low end about $6 up to over $100 per lead depending on volume purchased and loan type criteria. There is no more risk to the people who's information was stolen then there would be if the leads were purchased. As a mortgage broker myself I purchase leads from several online sources.I would like to add that I welcome some of the changes that have been taking place in the industry. The background checks etc that government is just now starting to institute have been called for by the decent brokers in the mortgage business for decades. Unfortunately the media has added fuel to the fire worsening the problems with finding investors to back many loan scenarios that would be perfectly viable. I could go on for hours.
Proud to say after 14 years none of my borrowers have lost a property through any fault of mine.

Thefts will continue until companies are held completely and financially responsible for ruining peoples lives by retaining and not protecting information held in 'trust'. Thank your Government for letting this happen as they are pro-business and not pro-American individual. Funny, without solvent citizens you have no country...

If someone obtains personal confidential information through an illegal source, hacked or otherwise, it is identity theft pure and simple. Companies that allow this to happen MUST be held accountable; regardless of HOW it happened. I had my identity stolen three years ago from a nationally known company. I am still fighting it today. Law suit has been going on for over two years. To all you folks out there who say, "It's no big deal" or "we're over-reacting", you should have walked in my shoes for the past three years. Lose your home, your retirement and finally your family and then say that "It's no big deal". . . .And to "Angry American", it really doesn't matter how the data was accessed, the fact is that it WAS accessed through illegal means. Ever had your identity stolen? I didn't think so.

It was in the last 5 years or so that, by law, these companies that get hacked have to alert customers. This has been going on for a long time, the difference is that they can no longer hush it up.

What about the mortgage brokers that, for the last two years, have been paying $25-$75 per Lending Tree lead plus a $500-$1000 per file funding fee; thinking that only 3 other lenders/brokers were competing on these leads when in fact there were 10?
In addition, you know Lending Tree was cherry picking the good leads and had the inside track to being the first person to contact the borrower.
Lending Tree is the Devil.

this reminds me of wal-mart a couple months ago...they were hacked and million people got affected by this. they only told the public of this,but no compensation of anything! Lending Tree will go bankrupt in class action lawsuits. YES!!!

If you think Lending Tree is the only company that did this you are highly mistaken. Having worked in the mortgage industry for the last 15 years, I have seen customer's information being tossed around and shared.
When a customer would apply for a loan a copy of the credit report and application(includes date of birth, address, phone number, social security numbers, work history and banking information).
Loan officers would also share online banking information with underwriters, banks etc...
The money was BIG the last 6 years (20k-50k per month)and people in the industry got greedy. Homeloan Center/Lending Tree was actually one of the most cautious companies I worked with. Your local broker was 100 times worse.
Unless you saw it first hand you would not believe it
Lending Tree is a big company, for this reason they are being singled out. Anyone with a mortgage is at risk to have their identy stolen.

If you think Lending Tree is the only company that did this you are highly mistaken. Having worked in the mortgage industry for the last 15 years, I have seen customer's information being tossed around and shared.
When a customer would apply for a loan a copy of the credit report and application(includes date of birth, address, phone number, social security numbers, work history and banking information).
Loan officers would also share online banking information with underwriters, banks etc...
The money was BIG the last 6 years (20k-50k per month)and people in the industry got greedy. Homeloan Center/Lending Tree was actually one of the most cautious companies I worked with. Your local broker was 100 times worse.
Unless you saw it first hand you would not believe it
Lending Tree is a big company, for this reason they are being singled out. Anyone with a mortgage is at risk to have their identy stolen.

I would never use lending tree again. So many creditors checked my credit rating, some I had never heard of after checking my credit report.
I ended up getting a lower interest rate on the loan because it lowered my credit rating by 95 points. I was shocked when I ordered my credit report to find this out. Now I know why. I would never use them again or recommend anyone else use them. What a rip off. It is also a bad reflection on Costco that they recommend and use Lending Tree.

this is true. my identity has being stolen as a result of applying to lending tree for a loan. this company should be sued immediately.

I had refinance my home to pay off a few bills. I never recevied any checks, my Identity was stolen and they gotten hold of my back account and $16,000 dollars from my saving I had for my grand kids. I have try to contact them, but I just get we are investiating your case. I am still fighting to get this matter right. I still have lender calling me late night, weekend, and my job.

I hope I was hacked so I can sue lending tree for them providing the worst customer service in the industry! Bring it on scammers?

The threat to a persons confidential information is not only limited to mortgage loan companies. Car dealers collect confidential customer information too by using third party internet based customer follow-up software programs. These internet (web) programs can be accessed by any disgruntled employee from a park bench via a Wi-Fi connection for their own benefit or they can sell the customer list to identity thieves. Car dealers know the problem exists with these web based programs (server based programs don't have this problem) but they choose to ignore it. You think your information is safe at a car dealer, think again. Sadly, the press never talks about this other threat to one's privacy and confidential inforamtion (s.s.#, d.o.b., etc.).

hey CFO what the hell would know about anything.. it was by there own employees aka the inside job... and if thats ypur spot at a company ..then your the person that knows you screwed people out of there 401k to line your own pockets and then file chapter 7, while you tell everyone that you have no idea how it happened like worldcom, enron

This was NOT a hack. This was an inside job done by criminals employed by Lending Tree and by those unscrupolous lenders who accepted Lending Tree usernames and passwords.

I have worked for 2 big mortgage companies and a broker. I've learned that Lendingtree not only sells your information to 2 or 3 lenders, they sell it to other small lenders and broker shops. And then after a while, they resell your information again so they can have continuous profit. If you ever applied with Lendingtree, make sure that you have read the Terms & Agreement. They sell it to anyone that can possibly help you. If you need a loan, work with a reputable company that will never sell or share your information. Give Financemerica a call at 1-800-852-9275. I know that their average rates are in the low 5's and their costs are lower than most lenders. Lenders that advertise 2% or "No" closing costs are lies. Read the fine terms and agreement. Good luck. Again, Lendingtree is a smart company. They make tons of money from consumers passing on their personal information. But it's only a matter of time before they go out of business.

You can't sue Lendingtree because it states in the Terms and Conditions that your information if you agreed to submit, they will pass it along to lenders that can help you. It's too bad most consumers don't read that before they submit their information. Either way Lendingtree is bad for consumers and they should be shut down.

I have used LT 2x in the past and planning to use it again in the next few weeks for a refinance. I know that tey sell out my information and I'm OK with it, that's why I use them. The more calls I get the better informed loan choice I'll make. I did local before. The local rates are usually 1.5-2% higher than the rate I get through LT. It's your personal preference.

LendingTree is a great company to work with and work for. No matter where you go, your information will get sold or leaked out

I am the network administrator for a medium sized international corporation,and I can tell you, IT sometimes doesn't find out a field employee has left until months after the fact. Was Lending Tree wrong to be so negligent? Yes. Are they being callous and uncaring? Absolutely. Honestly, though, everytime something like this comes up, no matter what a company does to assist customers as a sign of good will, someone will take a shot at the "Litigation Lottery" and start up a class action suit. In the end, the only ones who win are the lawyers.

Lending Tree, Lower My Bills - these are all misconceptions. They are For-Profit Lead Sellers. They take your information and sell it to those willing to pay for it. You then become a lead and the phone calls & emails don’t stop. As a Mortgage Planner this model embarrasses me. This is exactly the type of behavior that damages the reputation of our industry. Don’t get me wrong, competition is very healthy. I agree that when banks compete you win - but are they really competing? One reason why I operate my company as a Broker is our power to be able to shop over 200 lenders for each of our clients. By doing that we can ensure our clients are receiving the Best Rates, Best Programs, & Best Service available in the industry. Most importantly, this all accomplished without selling your private information to a bunch of people. If you don't call us, call someone you trust!

To those crying "LendingTree only cares about money"; Have you never dealt with ANY Amerikan corporation? Do you really think that ANY of them care about anything besides money? How naive ARE you? No...don't answer that. I recommend the movie "The Corporation" for starters. Educate yourself, would you?

Hard inquiries are inquiries where a potential lender is reviewing your credit because you've applied for credit with them. These include credit checks when you've applied for an auto loan, mortgage or credit card. Each of these types of credit checks count as a single inquiry. One exception occurs when you are "rate shopping". That's a smart thing to do, and your FICO score considers all inquiries within a 2 week period for an auto or mortgage as a single inquiry.

This is From FICO's website (MyFico.com) , so the people who are saying that there score went down 40 points or 95 points are sadly mistaken. Fact is LendingTree was bit lax in there security but if you think these company's used the info for anything else other than to sell a mortgage you're crazy. There's way more money in stiffing people on closing costs and rates than getting a credit card in there name. Wake up people.

It seems the biggest problem with all this compromising of our private, personal (if there is even such a thing today)information is the credit bureaus -the very ones we depend on for good credit! My information was compromised twice last year, and after I applied for a theft alert, Experian sent me a letter, stating they will watch for 90 days, and stop sending my information to others. Others? Who gives them the right to send my personal information, without MY approval? No wonder I get so much junk mail! Our society is in for a rude awakening, with all these hi - tech toys, credit cards, plastic discount cards - it's all designed to keep close track of everything you do, so they can sell you more. What ever made anyone think any of this is for our benefit?

Heard on the radio that what you can do in a situation like this is file a police report that your identity has been stolen (based only on the fact that you are a LendingTree customer, in this case). Not all police departments will do this, but once you have a police report, you can contact the 3 big credit bureaus and have a freeze put on your information AT NO COST, and you can unfreeze it when legitimately necessary again AT NO COST.

I got this miserable letter and I have to say that I am mad as a wet hen about it. I would never again trust this company to do anything. I found a local bank that gave me a far better rate and terms than any of the lenders they sent hounding me. The fact that they now make it my problem to check and monitor my credit report to make up for their mess up is ridiculous. They should have to pay for credit reports for all the people whose data was accessed. And if they win any lawsuit against others for this deed that money must most certainly go to their customers who are the real victims here. The government needs to set up some laws about what companies who have this problem must do for consumers. I hope this idiotic company tanks so bad after this debacle.

I was a lending tree customer during this time frame and recieved no such letter or notification of any kind. I have recieved phone calls at 9 pm from multiple lenders. I thought I got a good deal but I'll look into it. Companies who make money with the use of our information that we trust them with should be held liable for any security infractions, part of doing business is keeping everything secure, I'm sure they have a department for that someone is not doing there job and Lending Tree should have to make it right. Offering LifeLock to all affected would be a starter. Get a clue Lending Tree you just lost alot of business.

This is exactly why there should be no using our social security numbers for any purpose other than obtaining benefits when the time comes. I am a recent victim of identity theft and found some interesting facts that I never thought were even possible, for instance when you buy gas and swipe your card at the machine, there are clever theives waiting out there with software to take a snapshot of the front of your card, the one thing they cannot see is the 3 digit code on the back of your card, so this is how I was able to recover my money. I have used Lending Tree in the past and had a pleasant experience, however I am in the Real Estate field and I am seeing massive casulties from dishonest lending practices.

For all of the idiots defending Lending Tree read all of the negative comments. They use deceptive advertising to lure people in ($350/month payment for a $250,000 mortgage). Sell their information to anyone who will pay for it, unless they can do the loan themselves. In that case nobody competes.In most cases people are harassed by lenders for months at all hours.I know somebody that works for the FTC and they say it is only a matter of time before Lending Tree is sued and fined into oblivion.

I got my mortgage from Lending Tree and I found them to be Ok - As far as your personal information out there, did you ever do a search by your telephone number. there is one site that gives your address, your age, anyone else living there and actually gives a map with a star locating your exact location. To me that is scary

I am constantly shocked and amazed at how careless even large corporations are towards data security. If data were seen as physical dollars these companies would do a much better job protecting it.
Large amounts of money are transported by armored-car, not in the back seat of a company temp to be stolen by the first opportunist to spot an unattended laptop. Money is stored in a vault, not in a back room to which every employee and former employee has the key when the lights are shut off for the night and everyone has gone home. In not limited access and failing to change passwords regularly, Lending Tree exposed the personal data of thousands, if not tens of thousands of people.
When their back room was looted, what was the Lending Tree idea of the extent of their responsibility towards the customers? To send out form letters saying 'Sorry about your luck. Please recommend our service to your friends.' That's it! A Form-Letter! Please!
Far too often security is merely an after-thought, something to be delegated; a drain on the bottom line. Data is lost or stolen because security is poorly understood, poorly valued, and poorly implemented.
Nothing will change until real teeth are placed into law to heavily fine data breaches and to hold companies fully liable for all related expenses incurred by betrayed customers. When company know that they are a major data breach away from bankruptcy, only then will the the security of our data receive the vigilance it deserves.
Science_1

MY JOB REQUIRES ME TO RUN CREDIT REPORTS ON CUSTOMERS,ONLY WITH WRITTEN PERMISSION, ONLY IN PERSON AND ONLY UPON REQUEST SHOULD YOU EVER GIVE YOUR INFO. IF SOMEONE ASKS FOR OR REQUIRES AN ONLINE CREDIT APPLICATION LOG OFF, HANG UP AND GO SOMEWHERE ELSE WITH YOUR BUSINESS.

most people don't understand all these institution records your converstaions that contain sensative information. It doesn't take much to say those recored files onto a cd and sell it to a crook.

When will we realize that we need a national biometric identification system. Want a loan "fingerprint" or scan me in person, want a license "print me" in person. Want to check/access my credit "print me" in person (yep that right get a local office). Want a loan slap that finger down or scan your iris, but please don't leave peoples lives in the hands of ticked off former employees. Have a pool of every single citizen for crime compasion is an added benefit as well.

Any number based identification system is flawed at its core for any real level of users. But wait i can predict the responses....what about civil liberties....just wait until you identity is stolen or traded at will on the Internet in a foreign country that won't do anything for you nor are governed by American law. (seriously just google it)

Sadly we all have that sick to your stomach feeling that this is far from the last "breach" and face it how many go unreported or unearthed.

In response to CFO stating it was not intention and they were hacked ..... come on, give me a break. When did they do password changes, when did they audit the usage and origination of the ISP of the viewer, when did they perform safety assessments????? My company does this as standard practice and others choose not to because of cost, but where is the liability for NOT doing this? It ok CFO you can send me your personal data and I'll leak my password if you feel this was an unavoidable occurance. I might just need to get a new .........

Knock it off alreadY ....

What makes me even madder, is that this is the first I have heard of it. We used Lending Tree to find our mortgage broker last year! That, by the way, was a horrible experience, where we got screwed by both the broker (which has changed names several times) and by the lender (our country's biggest, you know who they are). Most of the problems were loan type and rate, all of which we only found out about at closing. I won't ever use Lending Tree again.

Is anyone here going to actually file that class action lawsuit? If not, then let's at least inundate them with consumer requests for credit monitoring and enough bad PR that they have to do something.

security is weakest link phenomenon

most vendors have ok technology and lousy operational security

we need to make our data personal property legally

then all this becomes a crime

OMG people, buy money to pay money... get real. Welcome to America. Next time I pay my bill I'll take in a bag of rice, it's worth more than the dollar!

This is interesting...I used to work for Lending Tree back in 2005-2006. It was actually a pretty fun company to work for, I enjoyed my time there. The weak link may have been with some employees who were young (well, I am young, but that's beside the point), weren't making that much money, and resorted to selling their "leads" to friends in the mortgage business. I remember being approached by a few friends who used to run a small mortgage operation to buy customer information for a nominal sum of money.

I think this is probably being blown out of proportion...though I wouldn't be surprised if there was some fraud happening especially with the downturn in the economy. It's not the system that's broken, you can have the most secure system in the world...it's the fallibility of people that we have to worry about.

Perhaps, just perhaps, all of this will tighten the industry and someone will have the insight to incorporate better controls. Worst case scenario, it may wake up some of the unsuspecting, all trusting public.

I'm sorry, this is just criminal!!! It's another really good reason to check out your local lenders!!!

In my opinion anyone that went through Lending Tree and their data was leaked should demand that their loan be invalidated and thus the house is now payed off unless it can be shown to be a clean loan. This would put lenders on notice that their methods will not be tolerated. Also mortgage loan agents and lawyers that worked with these lenders should have to pay back there fees and commissions due to there illegal activity's.

This is unthinkable that LendingTree or any other business would not immediately disable a former employee's password let alone only auditing every 3 to 6 months!

State records show the personal information of about 56,000 people in just Maryland alone was compromised by former employees of Charlotte, N.C-based Lending Tree.

The (Baltimore) Sun reports the security breach was disclosed by the company in an April 17 letter to the Maryland attorney general's office. An internal investigation revealed the former employees supplied passwords for company databases containing customer information to three mortgage brokers in California.The did not tell the general public until April 21 that their personal data had been compromised ... why the delay!

PLEASE, before you go to Lending Tree or other such companies, go to your bank first. You will be surprised how much easier and more secure it is to do business with your local bank. I applied through Lending Tree and after waiting for 6 weeks and getting false promises, the light bulb went on. I visited my bank who offered me the same deal and closed in 3 weeks