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Identity thieves are offering to sell confidential data of 21 million German bank accounts in the black market for €12 million (US$15.3 million).

And these aren’t just pranks, the thieves verified their claim via publishing DISCS containing the names, addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, account numbers, and bank routing numbers of 1.2 million accounts. Two media reporters of WirtschaftsWoche say that they posed as promising buyers at a hotel in Hamburg and they obtained the CD.

"We took away with us the first delivery, a CD with 1.2 million accounts, that we couldn’t imagine," said one of the editors overseeing the investigation. "In the worst case, three out of four German households would have to be afraid that some money could be taken from their checking account without their authorization, and perhaps even without their realizing it," the magazine stated.

The data is said to be leaked from call centre’s. In October, T-Mobile admitted losing records belonging to 17 million customers that included their names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, and email addresses.

Peter Schaar, a government official in charge of protecting personal data, said the WirtschaftsWoche report should serve as a wake up call.

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