cellcycle said:So, I have a question, anyone please clarify this for me. This eCheck system identity loss should only affect the bank account which is used for eCheck, am I right?

No. It does not affect any bank account at all.
If you write a check to any one he/she can get your account information from the check any way.
It is your responsibility to monitor your bank transactions regularly since any one can pull
money from your checking account without your knowledge. Since only banks can initiate this transactions you can always claim against the bank which initiated the ACH provided you report it within a reasonable time.

Thank you, adityanm

So, if I understood correctly, the worst will be those "people" could use my identity to ACH withdraw money from my account, or open new credit account under my name. Either changing the account number or close it will solve this, and put a fraud alert to my creditor. Am I right?

This is first time i run into this, I just want to evaluate what will be the worst scenario could happen to us.

BTW, i have ask scottrade to get new account number, and change my ID and PW of bank account, I am thinking I will go to my local bank to change my account munber also, and put a fraud alert. So, these could reduce the loss as much as possible. I also want to only leave a small amount of money on my bank account, and move to other accounts. Would your guys like to share what you have done. Are these the most urgent and right thing to do.

adityanm said:cellcycle said:So, I have a question, anyone please clarify this for me. This eCheck system identity loss should only affect the bank account which is used for eCheck, am I right?

No. It does not affect any bank account at all.
If you write a check to any one he/she can get your account information from the check any way.
It is your responsibility to monitor your bank transactions regularly since any one can pull
money from your checking account without your knowledge. Since only banks can initiate this transactions you can always claim against the bank which initiated the ACH provided you report it within a reasonable time.

adityanm said:As I said, I am not scared and am not doing anything new. I always check all my online accounts atleast once every day for any unauthorized transactions. If I find anything suspicious I will report immediately. That is all.

I'm thinking the same thing. Although it really SUCKS that a financial institution such as Scottrade would lose our info like that, I'm not seeing the full extent of the problem. They didn't get MY social security information -- but they DID get my routing number and checking account number.

What exactly is the difference between these hackers getting that info and me giving a personal check to ANYONE else? Looking at the bottom of my check will give you my routing number and checking account number. I've never freaked out about that in the past, so why do it now?

As long as I keep an eye on this account (which i do every day), then I don't see what else could happen...

cellcycle said:Is there chance "they" will use your information to open a new credit. I see that is the point to put fraud alert. Right?

Sure.. putting a fraud alert on your credit report will help you notice if someone is opening up credit in your name. (I'm actually in the middle of a free one year "alert" trial that tells me when there's any change on my report). But from what I understand in this case, "they" only got your social security number if your username or account number had your SSN embedded within it.

I could be wrong -- but it's getting more and more difficult to open up credit in someone else's name without their SSN. However, there's always the chance that someone could get your SSN in other ways (or even figure out how to open up credit WITHOUT the SSN), so you should always check your credit reports AT LEAST once a year to make sure there aren't any surprise accounts waiting in there...

... so I guess what I'm saying is that while THIS specific security lapse sucks, it doesn't change the way I've been monitoring my accounts/credit on a daily/yearly basis.

kdam001 said:I'm switching to Firstrade

I am switching to MB Trading. Just $1 per trade.

What really pisses me of is that today is the 28th and I have not received a letter or anything from them yet. Thanks to our community, I read about this over the weekend. I put a fraud alert on my credit as well as my wifes. I went to BoA today and opened a new checking acount and closed the old one.

Shame on Scottrade for not following up with us.....

They will loose a lot of customers for their handling of this......

MrA2u,

Did you use eCheck? I think they only sent this out to the users like us who signed up for it.

Yes I signed up about 3 months ago. Did not get an opportunity to use it though.

I got my letter today.

be careful where you transfer to. Troy Group has thousands of clients, including Ameritrade, Fidelity, and many of the Fortune 500 companies. They are in the same boat as Scottrade. At least Scottrade has informed people of what happened. Have any Ameritrade customers gotten anything about compromised information???