Steve Gillett was shocked at what he found behind the office of Visa Services Northwest. Not just personal information of the businesses clients but his own documents. He found papers including his name, social security number, credit card information and even a copy of his signature.
If I was to read into this story I would say Steve was mad with the company and was looking through the trash in an effort to harm the company. And his efforts paid off when he found information the law requires a business to shred. He then called the local media and the Attorney General.
The companies owner, Xiaoli Ding said this was an isolated incident and the company shreds personal information and shreds the rest. They have since moved to shredding everything.
Kudos to Visa Services Northwest for introducing a much better document destruction program. This highlights the dangers of a poorly designed program. Your enemies are always looking for you to make a mistake with what you shred. And do you really want your lowest level employees making the decision about what should be shredded? For the low cost of a paper shredding service the approach of shred everything is the only prudent option.