Dell Canada Failed to Protect Customers from Data Breach, Lawsuit Alleges

Canadian residents who purchased Dell products or who spoke with Dell tech support since June 2017 may have been affected by a major data breach, exposing their personal information to scammers.

Dell Canada partners with a third-party service provider in India to provide tech support for its customers. The call centre has access to and stores a slew of customer purchase information, including:

• Warranty information
• Service history
• Model numbers
• Personal information

Dell was the target of a major data breach in 2017, according to a report by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC). The report states that two employees of the third-party call centre “inappropriately disclosed Dell customer data lists in June and November of 2017,” exposing customer information.

Since then, Dell Canada customers have reported receiving tech support-related scam phone calls and emails regarding their past Dell purchases from scammers intent on committing fraud and/or identity theft.

One Dell customer says he began receiving incessant scam calls after the data breach targeting the Dell support centre, and he may be far from the only one, Global News reported. 

He filed a complaint with the OPC in February 2018, which began investigating the matter and released its report in July 2020, noting that the customer had a well-founded complaint. 

“We found that certain safeguards related to access controls, logging and monitoring, and technical controls were insufficient given the sensitivity of the personal information at issue. We also found that Dell failed to adequately investigate the circumstances of the June 2017 breach and failed to adequately respond to customer complaints,” reads the OPC report.

The customer filed a lawsuit in a Nova Scotia court on Oct. 1, 2020, alleging that Dell Canada and its parent company were negligent and failed to protect its customers’ privacy, according to the Toronto Star. The proposed class action lawsuit could include more than 7,000 Class Members over the data breach and the subsequent scam calls and emails that have beleaguered customers. 

The proposed lead plaintiff received between five and 10 scam calls per day, at all hours, for a period of about two years, his lawsuit alleges.  

Eventually, he ended up changing his phone number. However, that didn’t stop the scammers from reaching out — the plaintiff said that they began targeting his email instead when his number was cancelled.

The lawsuit was filed in a Nova Scotia court on Oct. 1, 2020. In response, Dell issued a statement via email saying it “places the highest priority on the protection of consumer data.”

If you own a Dell hardware product from 2017 to the present and have received targeted Dell tech support spam communications purportedly about your Dell product following the June 2017 data breach, you may be able to join a class action lawsuit investigation and pursue compensation.

Join a Free Dell Canada Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you have owned a Dell hardware product from 2017 to the present and received targeted Dell tech support spam communications purportedly about your Dell product following the June 2017 data breach, you may be able to join a class action lawsuit investigation and pursue compensation.

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