[Fair use for education and research purpose only]

Title: Tax Filer Cracks Another's Code

Story Filed: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 9:24 PM EDT

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A man filing his daughter's tax return on the Internet accidentally cracked the user code and password of another man and gained access to his financial records and credit card information, H&R Block confirmed Wednesday.

The man had begun work on the tax return, stored it before he finished it and then attempted to return to it. By then, he had forgotten his daughter's username and password, and began trying to guess it.

He accidentally hit on the username and password of another man, said Todd Ransom, a spokesman for H&R Block.

Ransom described the incident as a one-in-a-million type of occurrence'' and a fluke.''

But H&R Block was investigating to make sure that no other incidents had occurred, Ransom said.

Ransom said the incident was unrelated to problems earlier this year that forced H&R Block to shut down the Internet site. H&R Block discovered in February that because of a software problem, some people's financial information was mixed with information of others.

H&R Block did not shut down the site this time.

A spokeswoman for the world's largest tax preparer said the first glitch affected fewer than 50 people. H&R Block guaranteed that no one's tax forms would have incorrect information.

H&R Block said it expects to process about 650,000 returns on the Internet site this tax season.

Copyright ) 2000 Associated Press Information Services, all rights reserved.

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), April 06, 2000