Dumpster diving is still one of the easiest ways to find critical business information. To this day, companies that don’t understand the importance of maintaining a document shredding plan toss complete records of employees, business activities, and customer information into a dumpster.
Here, we tell the tales of some of those unfortunate companies that threw their documents away intact- and the resulting fallout from this mistake.
Identity theft is something that we are constantly trying to protect ourselves from. However, one of the most overlooked causes of identity theft is dumpster diving. Oftentimes, documents containing personal identifiable information are thrown out when they really should be shredded. Here is a list of documents that contain...
The legality of dumpster diving varies from state to state. It is considered a gray area. Because dumpsters are usually located on private premises, it may be considered illegal, though the law is enforced with varying degrees. There is no common law exception of privacy for discarded materials. Jim...
A man leaving boxes in a recycling dumpster made a surprising discovery. The dumpster was located behind Bishop Verdot High School in Fort Myers, Florida. In the dumpster were boxes that contained student records. After making the discovery he called WINK news. The school guessed that the records were...
Regus Salon recently closed their location at the Boise Towne Square Mall in Boise, Idaho. They dumped everything that they didn’t want into the dumpster behind the mall. The old salon chairs sticking out of the dumpster brought a lot of attention from dumpster divers. The problem was that...
People who go to a gym may have heard about shredding workouts. The goal is to cut weight and improve muscle tone. I can’t speak to its effectiveness but I do know about another kind of shredding that every gym needs to do. Many gyms like to sign up...
If you have ever sent a fan letter to Taylor Swift we now know where it went. Kylee Francescan discovered hundreds of letter addressed to the singer in a dumpster behind a strip mall. The letter were described as being “covered with pictures, hearts and sparkles.” This is strong...
Peggy Barland-Coleman closed here accounting firm over three years ago. The Spartanburg, South Carolina, CPA said she sorted out the important information from the unimportant documents and then threw them into the trash. The problem is that she didn’t do so well in determining what was important. As a result...
Volunteers at Miami Northwestern Senior High were alarmed to find student records and textbooks in a dumpster behind the school. Upon investigation it was learned that employees were told to clean out a storage area. Everything was just taken out to the dumpster. The spokesperson said it was a...
Summer Stastny worked at the Dairy Queen in Omaha, Nebraska. Before leaving she noticed the store was planning on throwing out their old payroll records. Stastny said she notified owners that they needed to shred the documents since they contained personal information and social security numbers. FACTA requires shredding...
Grant Lind is allegedly an identity thief. He is charged with 44 counts for a check counterfeiting scheme. It appears he got his information from dumpster diving in a bin used by Valencia Self Storage in Valencia, California. He then created and cashed counterfeit checks. The value of the...
