Business Lost

Well after CIBC's actions the last couple of days it is safe to say that I won't be taking any of my business to them anytime soon.

I'm sure most of you have heard that for quite a while now CIBC has been faxing customer information to a junk yard down in the US. After the owner of the junk yard informed CIBC several times he finally resorted to the media since CIBC wouldn't do anything to stop it.

Well CIBC just lost a potential customer today. Today we find CIBC at it's ethical best:

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce accuses scrapyard operator Wade Peer of deliberately leaking confidential CIBC customer data and of violating Canadian privacy laws.

The bank's allegations, made in court filings yesterday, come just one business day after the bank publicly praised him for the way he protected confidential customer data that the bank had mistakenly faxed to him for more than three years.

Mr. Peer is seeking $3-million (U.S.) in damages from the bank in a Maryland court, claiming that the volume of faxes sent to his business, AllStar Sportsline Properties, by CIBC branches prevented him from communicating with his customers. As a result, he claims in the suit, his business failed.

In their brief, CIBC lawyers said: “Mr. Peer provided The Globe and Mail (a mass publication Toronto newspaper) and the Canadian television network CTV with confidential financial information about CIBC's customers — either from his own copies of the faxes or, as Peer now claims, from the materials his counsel had already placed on this Court's website.

“[Mr. Peer and AllStar] have already shown that they will misuse CIBC's confidential customer information. . . . None of this conduct can possibly be justified as a matter of fairness or common sense.”

So let me get this straight. The CIBC fraudulantly handles customer information. An individual informs them of what they are doing and yet they do nothing. He finally forces them to put a stop to it by speaking out to the media. The CIBC becomes worried about it's reputation and so it proceeds to blame the guy on the other end of the fax machine. Gotcha. Makes perfect sense.

That's it for now. I've got a letter to CIBC that I have to write.

Update @ 10:17am

If you want to send CIBC a message you can do it here.