A network of credit card salespeople and bank employees have been trading the personal information of bank customers and credit card holders with each other in an effort to make quicker sales, as reported by Kompas daily in a recent investigation.
Personal information sold by the salespeople comprised a customer’s name, phone number, address and even their parents’ names.
Basic customer information, excluding their financial information, was sold for as low as Rp 300 (21 US cents) per piece of information. Personal information that included evidence of a customer’s financial health was typically sold for between Rp 20,000 and Rp 50,000 per piece of information.
A credit card salesperson, identified only as RF, said last month that he had been selling the private information of 1,101 credit card holders compiled by a private bank between 2017 and 2018 for Rp 350,000, or around Rp 318 per piece of infromation.
“The information contains credit card holders’ personal data,” he said.
The investigation confirmed the validity of the data, as a credit card holder whose private information was sold by the salespeople told Kompas that every piece of information – including her home and office addresses, date of birth, phone number and credit card number – was accurate.
The source said her credit card was issued by a state-owned lender, not a private bank.
A credit card sales coordinator at a bank in Central Jakarta, identified only as JS, said the selling of cardholders’ private information had been commonplace among bank employees.
High-quality data, which includes information on cardholders’ salary and financial documents from Bank Indonesia and the Financial Services Authority (OJK), is typically sold for Rp 1 million per 50 pieces of information, or Rp 20,000 each, JS said.
JS added that employees were sometimes compensated by the bank for giving away customers’ personal information. JS and other bank employees can earn up to Rp 16 million for 30 to 40 platinum credit card approvals.
However, not every piece of a customer’s personal information is “good”, according to JS.
“Personal data that has been resold between multiple banks is largely regarded as garbage: it is usually sold online,” JS said.
Personal data is sold online for as low as Rp 0.1 per piece of information, as reported by Kompas.
Indonesian Credit Card Association executive director, Steve Martha, said the recent sale of customers’ personal data was possibly part of an effort to attract new telemarketers.
State-owned PT Bank Mandiri corporate secretary Rohan Hafas said the selling of personal information was a persistent issue in the industry. However, he went on to say that the selling was not caused by a leak from banks.
OJK commissioner Heru Kristiyana said personal financial information of bank customers was protected by the constitution.
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