VZW employees on leave for looking at Obama cellphone records
November 21 2008 - 11:20 am ET | Gary E. Salazar | RCR Wireless News
Verizon Wireless has placed several employees on leave for accessing President-Elect Barack Obama's personal cellphone account, according to CEO Lowell McAdam.
In a statement, McAdam said the company learned of the unauthorized access this week and took immediate action. The device on the account, which has been inactive for several months, was described by McAdam as a “simple voice flip-phone, not a BlackBerry or smartphone designed for e-mail or other data services.”
“All employees who have accessed the account — whether authorized or not — have been put on immediate leave, with pay,” McAdam said. “As the circumstances of each individual employee’s access to the account are determined, the company will take appropriate actions.”
The company did not say how many employees viewed Obama’s account.
The Obama-Biden transition team declined to publicly comment on the incident. However, RCR Wireless learned Verizon Wireless notified transition officials yesterday about the privacy breach in advance of issuing a press release last night.
During the election season, Obama's campaign used Verizon Wireless as its main wireless provider. According to campaign finance reports, the campaign spent more than $1 million on wireless services provided by Verizon Wireless. The campaign used text messaging to reach potential voters and also had a Web site available for mobile users.
McAdam said employees that accessed Obama’s account for legitimate purposes will be returned to their positions. Employees who accessed the account improperly or without authorization will face appropriate disciplinary action.
“We apologize to President-Elect Obama and will work to keep the trust our customers place in us every day,” McAdam said.
November 22, 2008 05:00 pm
@ ROLF CopterAre you an idiot?All companies have bad apples--its part of life. Its not VZW's fault, they cant control what every person does. They can drive the nail in about privacy and trust but they are not their to hold each employees hand and play the babysitting role. Something like this happen with another cellular company that we all know about, its a terrible thing when someones privacy is invaded but at least they acknowledge it and are doing what they can to fix it. So stop the flaming and get on with your life!
November 22, 2008 05:00 pm
I've worked for T-Mobile, AT&T, & Verizon dealing with retail sales, customer service, & call center. All companies have policies to prevent this, If you rember T-Mobile had Hilton mishap where they fired a lot of people for looking at records. We do have a lot of access, and everytime someone access the account it does leave a footprint. No matter how carefull one is, sometimes mistakes happen, going on & overlooking them is not acceptable. All the companies I've mentioned above have tried to protect, and be upfront when errors have happened. They are investigating to make sure fair and due process are observed, if wrongful conduct is found out they will most likely be dealt with harshly. People who have worked in this field have had the point driven in hard through training and daily duties of their responsibilites. ------------- This is a invasion of privacy, but people should be more concerned with how companies compile information from smartphones now days, than this. Our phones can tell locations, along with websites you go to, to your spending habits on line. --------I will not mention which company I'm currently working for above, but know that my company has highest standards for protecting the rights of our customers and setting standards for others to follow. All companies try to do this. Media is wanting to focus on something other than economy. Give people a chance to do their jobs, quit speculating. ------- Try having upset customers day in & day out and think of how many times in a store or on a phone you've heard people complain about account verification before releasing information or reviewing accounts. Customer Service Reps for all carriers have a tough job. They take on brunt of problems and try to resolve them, when they where not the cause. Their can be a few bad apples in any batch, but for the most, everyone does their best to give a good customer service experice. No one deserves to be judged based on a few. --------------------------I hope I have not offended anybody but I've worked along side many different reps, in many stores and call center, & I have yet to find one that I still do not call friend, and trust. I believe in all them from the point of sale in the store to reviewing my account in center & store. Remember this last statement because this is not just one company but a professional field that encompasses many companies. Entegrity takes a life time to build but a short time to destroy. -----ALL ACCOUNTS ARE TO BE CONSIDERED VIP ----------
November 22, 2008 05:00 pm
For VZW to have gotten such a lucrative deal for the election coverage they probably already had a government contract which would explain why they were chosen to be used. Because of this high breach in services they need to be let go from doing any further business with government officials because of the safety they failed to provide. Yes terminate the employees and terminate VZW from doing any future business especially President Elect Obamas cell phone service. They dropped the ball and need to be held accountable. If they become his wireless provider what kind of trust can they have. Another sweep it under the rug and its okay. I dont think so. Terminate VZW from doing any future business with anyone who violates this.
November 22, 2008 05:00 pm
I am a T-mobile Employee and we do have the methods that you are talking about in place no matter who access your acct weather they do anything or not it leaves a "foot Print" with there name id and date and time of the access. we also have a special team that handles "VIP" accounts and such.
November 22, 2008 05:00 pm
I believe the company is hidding the fact that they did not flag the account to be blocked from viewers and passing it down to the employees. How do we know the accessed the phone call records? They can only see who went into the account and not what they did. They flag accts for employees and other high profile accounts. Why not this one? HMMM Did someone mess up? Did that person keep his job while others suffer?
November 22, 2008 06:00 am
I have worked in customer service for 5 years for both the wireless and financial industry. While I do not approve of what happened with the VZW employees I do know that at the very least they have a system in place to view who has accessed the account. The financial company I worked for only noted changes to a consumers account and as a cs rep you had to manually note that you accessed the account. I specifically remember trainers showing us accounts of famous individuals. Disgusting yes!
November 22, 2008 06:00 am
This is Awesome, I will help spread the word that Verizon is checking peoples private information when not authorized too. I will make sure it makes it to many blogs and continue to spread the word about how the "Can you hear me now?" Gang is nothing but a Capital One Spammer to the American consumer!
November 22, 2008 06:00 am
This really surprises me. Most of the high profile accounts are blocked. There have been folks that have attempted to search and access celebrity accounts without success. Once the account is located, the system pops up an error message that indicates that it is locked. I have worked with professional athletes and some of them have the accounts under an agency name to prevent situations like this. This is wrong of the employees, but why would Obama be stupid enough to keep the account under his own name? To answer some of the questions posted, not every person can access every account. However, I am nobody important or famous that I need to worry about people going through records. If you called customer care and they weren't able to access your account and answer questions, you would be complaining that VZW hire incompetent employees. This is unusual event that is not business as usual. I would be more worried about your credit card company selling every piece of data collected about you to any company who says please.
November 21, 2008 11:24 am
Just to respond to Renee below. They all need to be fired. You are right.That's my whole point. What happened to integrity & honesty? it flew out the window and is getting worse.
November 21, 2008 11:24 am
you can't trustanyonenow in days, not even VERIZON WIRELESS