An apparent mix-up that has so far defied efforts to fix has left the owner of a West Virginia scrap yard receiving confidential information on hundreds of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce customers for more than three years.

Despite repeated efforts to get the bank to fix the problem, Wade Peer has been receiving by fax CIBC fund transfer request forms that contain the social insurance numbers, home addresses, phone numbers and other account data of several hundred bank customers.

The problem is a major breach of Canada's privacy laws and could land the bank in hot water with regulators. For Mr. Peer, it has become such a nuisance that he was forced to shut down one of his businesses and it is only through his goodwill that hundreds of bank customers haven't become the victims of identity theft.

"Had I been a bad guy, I could have got credit cards in their name, I could have assumed their identity. I could have transferred money out of their bank accounts and they'd never know that it happened," Mr. Peer was quoted in published reports.

He has either shredded or locked up the documents, contacted bank customers to get them to pressure the bank to take action and petitioned the bank himself. The customers were understandably upset to learn their confidential information was swamping the fax machine of a West Virginia scrap dealer, while bank officials have hardly given Mr. Peer the time of day, he claims.

For its part, CIBC said in a written statement that it believed the matter had been rectified in 2002 and that it was a "disturbing revelation" to discover the problem was still occurring. A full review is underway and the bank said it has contacted Canada's privacy commissioner.

As far as he can tell, Mr. Peer is receiving the faxes from upwards of 350 different CIBC fax machines. Court documents filed by CIBC last week confirm 100 of its fax numbers are involved.

The faxes that he keeps receiving are apparently destined for CIBC's central faxing unit in Toronto and he believes the problem began simply with a mistake in the 1-800 number to call into that unit, a mistake that has his own 1-800 number being dialled instead.

The situation has reached the point where Mr. Peer has filed a suit in Maryland court on behalf of his auto accessories business, AllStar Sportsline Products Inc. He accuses CIBC of negligence and claims US$3 million in damages.

CIBC, meanwhile, denies the allegations or that the problem has harmed Mr. Peer's business. The bank also accuses his company of failing to co-operate to help solve the problem.