Someone had dumped bags and boxes of their "trash" at my business. As standard operating procedue, I typically get their name and address off of a piece of mail that is in the trash and give them a friendly call letting them know they have about 12 hours to come and retrieve their "trash." However, what I found on this particular day was extremely disturbing.
A father, who was obviously moving and discarding boxes of unwanted clutter had disposed of a box of his daughter's belongings. In the box was an empty cell phone box, complete with the cell phone number and cancelled check used to set-up a bank draft to purchase to the phone. Also, there were paper copies of emails complete with names and email addresses. One of the emails had the url to a MySpace page. It just went on and on and on. The carelessness was appalling.
In today's day and age, with media headlines bombarding us with the latest violent crimes, it's easy to forget that we must put up or defenses on all fronts to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Careless disposing of personal information is like leaving the front door to your home wide open when leaving.