Data flight: Desjardins will have to pay $ 6,700 to a victim

Data flight: Desjardins will have to pay $ 6,700 to a victim


A victim of the data theft at Desjardins who was then defrauded, decided to continue the financial institution herself rather than registering for the collective appeal and was thus able to obtain $ 6,700 in compensation.

Pierre Dondo, who is not a regular customer of Desjardins, had opened an account with the financial institution in 2011, in order to obtain an effective car loan until 2018.

A year after the end of his loan, he learned that he was one of the millions of Quebecers whose data would have been stolen by Sébastien Boulanger-Dorval, an employee of Desjardins.

Mr. Dondo’s information was then used by fraudsters to obtain a credit card at Laurentian Banque. He experienced the existence only when the bank sent him a formal notice claiming a balance of $ 25,000.

He believes that he had spent more than fifty hours on the phone in order to have this credit card canceled and thus protect himself against future fraud.

Action collective

If he had signed up for collective action undertaken against Desjardins, he could have been entitled to compensation up to $ 1,000.

But Mr. Dondo, a former lawyer now owner of a medical clinic in downtown Montreal, decided to continue Desjardins himself at the Division of Small Claims of the Court of Quebec.


Pierre Dondo obtained $ 6,700 from Desjardins for having his data stolen, after continuing the financial institution in small claims.



Pierre Dondo obtained $ 6,700 from Desjardins for having his data stolen, after continuing the financial institution in small claims.

LINKEDIN Pierre Do not

The court, which is not bound by the agreement concluded in the context of collective action, therefore granted it $ 5,000, in addition to $ 1,700 allowing it to register for the Equifax surveillance service for next five years. This measure, which had been implemented free of charge by Desjardins following data theft, expired last year.

“This personal information is still possibly in the hands of fraudsters and available on the underground web,” said Judge Stéphanie La Rocque at the Montreal courthouse.

Criminal charges

The data theft, which included in particular the name, the date of birth and the social insurance number of the victims, was able to take place over a period of 26 months without Desjardins detecting it, according to an investigation by the commission of access to information from Quebec cited by the magistrate.

“Had not been the discovery of the flight by the police, who knows how long the ploy of this former employee would have lasted?” said Judge La Rocque.

The Sûreté du Québec finally arrested, last June, the former employee Sébastien Boulanger-Dorval. According to the survey, he has sold customer lists to a company held by a friend, private lender Jean-Loup Masse Leullier.


Sébastien Boulanger-Dorval is the main suspect in data theft at Desjardins. He was accused in mid-June.


Sébastien Boulanger-Dorval is the main suspect in data theft at Desjardins. He was accused in mid-June.

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The date of their trial, which could extend over two months, is still not known.

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