Today I opened my mail to find a letter from Renz Nichols, President of Certegy Check Services. Renz tells me that a rogue Certegy employee sold data from numerous checking accounts -- likely including mine -- to a data broker who in turn sold that data to a subset of direct marketing organizations. According to the letter, that data may have included my name, address, telephone number, account number, expiration date for check and debit cards, checking accounts, transactional data and date of birth.

The letter goes on to talk about all the things Certegy has done in light of this theft, such as notifying the credit bureaus and law enforcement.

What has me seeing red is the advice to monitor my credit report by going to the free credit report site AnnualCreditReport.com!

I have already requested my free annual credit reports within the past twelve months, so I am not entitled to another copy, unless I am a victim of identity theft or live in a state that gives me extra copies. Neither apply to me -- yet. You should be providing me with a year of free credit report monitoring from all three credit bureaus, along with identity theft detection and resolution services.

Sorry, Renz, the apology doesn&39;t cut it. This is not a case of a lost tape that probably hasn&39;t been compromised. In this case, you know an employee was selling information -- maybe mine -- for illicit gain.

You need to do better.

Gerri Detweiler – Personal finance author, radio host and credit expert. Gerri contributes budgeting, debt recovery and savings information online.