Verizon Employee Illegally Sold Customer Information For As Little As $50/Month

A Verizon Wireless employee has pleaded guilty to violating federal law by selling customer phone records and location data to a private investigator, starting at a measly $50 a month.

According to a plea agreement [PDF] filed last week in a federal court in Alabama, the defendant, Daniel Eugene Traeger, was employed as a network technician for Verizon. In 2009, a private investigator contacted Traeger, offering to pay him for customer information.

Traeger allegedly accessed Verizon’s computer network to obtain call records and location data for the investigator, while being fully aware that he was not allowed to do so. In return, the P.I. paid him a monthly fee of $50.

By 2013, prosecutors say that rate had been bumped up to $750/month. In total, the defendant earned more than $10,000 from selling this information.

Traeger could face up to five years in prison for violating a federal law prohibiting unauthorized access of a protected computer. However, as the AP notes, prosecutors are asking the court to consider a shorter sentence because Traeger has cooperated.