I received a letter from BNY Mellon today. They’re the bank responsible for processing dividends on the six shares of stock I own in the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. An entire six shares. Even if I cashed them in, they wouldn’t cover the amount of hassle I’m now at risk of encountering. Here’s how the letter opens:

We are writing to let you know that computer tapes containing some of your personal information were lost while being transported to an off-site storage facility by our archive services vendor. While we have no reason to believe that this information has been accessed or used inappropriately….

Having worked for a financial services company, I was already pretty thoroughly convinced that personal information isn’t protected nearly as well as the various players claim it is. So in many ways, it really did seem like just a matter of time until my information was put at risk through no fault of my own.
Oh. And the tapes were lost in February. According to the letter, they’ve spent the past five months investigating. Given the lack of a “here’s what we found out” paragraph, I can only conclude they have no idea what went happened.
I know what’s going on. Where did you think Congress was going to come up with the trillion dollars they need to bail out the financial system?