Personal Information Sold at Goodwill

Have you ever donated old clothes, books, furniture or other items to a Salvation Army or Goodwill store?  Well, one donator to Goodwill in central Indiana donated a bit more than he intended.  If his donations were checked before being put up for sale, this may not be an issue.  Unfortunately, a box containing 39 pounds of one family’s personal information was sold to a woman for $27.69.

Emily Watson opened a box that she bought from a Goodwill outlet store in the Indianapolis area and found someone else’s sensitive records.  If items can’t be sold at the retail stores for any reason, they are put in bins and sent to Goodwill outlet stores.  These are closed boxes sold by the pound to anyone who wants to take a chance that there is something valuable inside.  Ms. Watson bought one such box and when she opened it found personal information all belonging to one family.  The box contained Social Security cards, tax returns, pay stubs, banking information, dental and other medical records, divorce papers and insurance documents.  There were also family photos and addresses of family members.

This had happened to Ms. Watson before.  At another time, she purchased a box containing personal information, so she opened the box in the store before buying it.  When she saw what it contained, she pulled out all the items to show a store employee, who referred her to the manager.  When the manager looked through the paperwork, she said, “It doesn’t look harmful to me.  It’s OK.”  Ms. Watson then made the purchase because she was afraid that it would get into the hands of someone not as honest as she.  She was afraid for the people the information belonged to. 

After purchasing the box, Ms. Watson tipped off WTHR Channel 13 as to her find.  WTHR 13 Investigates then opened an investigation as to the allegations made of Goodwill selling personal information.  The station sent undercover “shoppers” to three Indianapolis area Goodwill outlets and found that at every outlet location they visited, they were able to purchase someone’s personal information.  This didn’t just happen once; out of 28 visits in 2 months, personal information was purchased 24 times.   WTHR employees were able to purchase valid debit and credit cards, leases, automobile titles, medical histories, immigration papers, bills, employee drug test results, college transcripts, IRA and 401K statements and all other kinds of legal documents containing personal information. 

 

The personal information donated to Goodwill, then sold by them, contained thousands of pages, filling three boxes.  Some Social Security numbers found belonged to police officers stationed at the Indianapolis Metro Police Department.  When WTHR spoke with Sgt. Eric Eads, who is an identity theft expert in the department, he said, “Let me put it to you this way:  this is a police nightmare here.  If someone got ahold of this stuff.  It’s just shocking the amount of Social Security numbers and tax records you found.”

Another person whose tax records were found by WTHR employees is Elesabeth Leclercq.   She is quoted as saying, “It’s terrible.  I don’t even know what to say.  I’m still stunned and in a state of shock.”  Julie and Brett Snyder also found out that their information had been sold along with information on their children.  Mrs. Snyder said, “This isn’t anything we would throw away.  I mean, we wouldn’t have just handed this over to Goodwill.  It’s shocking.  We are completely shocked.”

The person whose information started it all when Emily Watson purchased it is named Rose.  She refused to give her last name, but she did give a statement.  “It’s pretty devastating and I’ve had nightmares about it” she said. 

A string of errors, starting from a cleaning service sending boxes to Goodwill instead of a storage center led to this personal information being sold.  When confronted by WTHR, Cindy Graham, Marketing Vice President at Goodwill, admitted their part of the mistake.  She told the station, “We do take this very seriously.  They don’t want us to have it and we don’t really want to have it either.”  She went on to say that there will be changes in policy once Goodwill is finished with its own internal investigation by stating, “We’re going to take a look and see how we can prevent that from happening.  Our process would have been and should have been and will be ‘Let’s shred this’”.  Ms. Graham did, however, add that donators need to be more aware of what they are sending out for donation.

All of the documents purchased by WTHR were either destroyed or returned to their owners.  I’m sure these people are very relieved that because of an honest person, Emily Watson, none of their information got into the hands of identity thieves.

At this time, please take a few minutes to download the free Privacy Guide located at the top of this page.  There are many suggestions in it that will help you to keep your identity safe in the real world and on-line.