Wonga has announced that customer records including names, addresses and bank account details for up to 250,00 people may have been accessed by hackers.
Wonga said it was urgently investigating illegal and unauthorised access to the personal data of some of its customers in the UK and Poland.
Wonga realised last week there was a problem. It alerted the authorities and started to contact borrowers on Saturday to make them aware of the problem.
Customers who are thought to have been affected have received a message from Wonga telling them: “We believe there may have been illegal and unauthorised access to some of your personal data on your Wonga.com account.”
The message said that Wonga was working to establish the full details and the data breached may include one or more of the following: name, email address, home address, phone number, the last four digits of your card number (but not the whole number) and/or your bank account number and sort code.
It also said that Wonga believes its accounts and passwords have not been compromised, but customers were advised to look out for unusual activity across their accounts
Wonga has had a turbulent life since its start 11 years ago and has been trying to repair its reputation (currently considered to be an irresponsible lender). This data breach certainly won’t help and Wonga made pre-tax losses of £80.2 million in 2015.
In a statement, the firm said: “We are working closely with authorities and we are in the process of informing affected customers. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.”
Wonga also said it did not believe the attackers had gained access to users’ loan accounts, but warned them to be vigilant.
What Should Wonga Customers Do?
The payday lender has set up a help page for affected customers at https://www.wonga.com/help/incident-faq
It advises them to:
Alert their bank and ask them to look out for any suspicious activity. Wonga will also be informing financial institutions about the breach
Watch out for scammers or unusual online activity. In particular, customers are told to be cautious about cold calls and emails asking for personal information
Contact the Wonga helpline on 0207 138 8330 for further information
The Information Commissioner’s Office said: “All organisations have a responsibility to keep customers’ personal information secure. Where we find this has not happened, we can investigate and may take enforcement action.”
Wonga has a reported APR of over 1,500% – so no-one with another choice should consider paying that.
Are you affected by this? – if so then let me know by email.
