DoD employee W-2 forms misrouted

In a foul-up that has angered many civilian Defense Department employees, the finance center that puts out W2 tax forms for most DoD civilians has mistakenly sent that highly personal financial information on potentially thousands of employees to the wrong people.

The misrouted W-2 forms, printed by a private firm under contract to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service in Denver, resulted in affected individuals receiving two copies of their own statements and one of the next person on the computer file. Officials at the center say they don't know how many people are affected except to note that the problem occurred in a batch of 50,000 forms. That entire batch has been reprinted and resent.

The problem mostly affects employees in southern California, but complaints about misrouted forms also have been received from the Northwest and Michigan.

Said one employee in Washington state, "Somebody has my name, address, Social Security number, my salary. That's everything they need to apply for a credit card in my name."

An employee in Oregon echoed the concern, writing to the Denver center that "in today's world of stolen identities so prevalent in news stories, how do I know that this person won't apply for credit cards, travel cards and other lines of credit using these supposedly protected personal items of information?"

From a federal employee newsletter 17 Feb 97