Joe Lents is a thief and a liar. He promised to pay a loan, and now he's refusing to honor his commitment. Despicable.

The bank is guilty of mismanagement and negligence on a massive scale. Joe Lents is an outright criminal, even if the bank can't prove his crimes.

A pox on all their houses.

I think that y'all are over-reacting a little here.

They actually use this data for good, not evil. As I understand it, each bear has its own unique ID number. If someone loses their bear, and someone else finds it and turns it into the shop, the shop can look up that number, find the child's name, address, and phone number, and contact them to let them know that their bear is OK.

Every bit of information that's listed in the excerpt can be used for good: Contact info for returning lost bears, birthday for sending birthday cards, and gender for personalizing messages sent from the company to the child.

And seriously, if you're worried that the Build-a-Bear Workshop knows that your little Sally is a girl, you've got paranoia issues.