So a few hours after posting my blog entry on the RMR potential of identity theft protection services and the sobering new research numbers showing a massive escalation in breached personal data, I walked out to my mailbox and got a little reminder of the incidental, randomness of life. Waiting for me in the mailbox was a newly issued debit card from Bank of America for, you guessed it, a breach of my data. “Information from your Bank of America account may have been compromised at an undisclosed third-party location,” the letter stated.

It is a version of Muphry's law [The name is a deliberate misspelling of Murphy's law],an adage that states that “if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written” — hence the misspelled name. In this case, if you write something about the “massive escalation in breached data” [quoting myself above], your data will be breached.

The interesting twist is that Bank of America topped a poll by Javelin Strategy & Research as the best bank for credit card safety for the fifth consecutive year.

Javelin Strategy & Research carries out an annual Card Issuer’s Safety Scorecard survey that reveals the lenders that currently have the best track records when it comes to fighting identity theft and rectifying fraudulent transactions. In the 2011 results, the top five were as follows:

Well, so much for poll results.

The good news is that my new debit card has a flashy new design that puts my old card to shame. Have to find the positive somewhere, right?

Maybe in addition to researching identity theft protection for its RMR potential, I should do a little research on identity protection options for myself!