Some new Wells Fargo customers in South Carolina and Floridareceived a surprise in this week's mail: An estimated 30,000got statements belonging to other customers.

The misdirected statements in many instances included accountand routing numbers, some transactions, and for customers who hadestablished direct deposit of paychecks, Social Security numbersmay also have been disclosed, admitted Wells Fargo spokespersonJosh Dunn in an interview

The bank pointed to a malfunctioning printer in Charlotte,N.C., as the cause of this significant security breech.

Press reports – citing a comment apparently made by a bankemployee to an inquiring customer – said that 30,000 Wells Fargocustomers are impacted. The bank declined to confirm thatnumber.

All impacted customers are onetime Wachovia customers who, afterthe Wells Fargo merger, now are Wells Fargo customers. The changeover in the South Carolinaregion was completed last month. Dunn denied the changeover hadanything to do with the snafu, however.

“We deeply regret that we have let our customers down andapologize for any inconvenience this has caused,” Dunn toldCredit Union Times. “Though we believe the risk ofcompromising a customer's account is low, we are providing allcustomers whose statements were printed by the malfunctioningprinter with one year's worth of free ID theft protection.”

Local news reports in the region on Friday cited many customerswho expressed confusion, uncertainty and later anger and fear asthey realized they had received statements belonging to others.