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. 

Make Sure Your Password is Secure

Just about every day, there’s an article in the newspaper or a story on the news that talks about cyber-crime, usually in the form of identity theft.  Most Internet users feel that they are safe because they are “cautious”; they never download from strange websites, nor do they open an e-mail unless they know who sent it.  The problem is that these “cautious” people forget one of the most important aspects to keeping their privacy safe:  the password.  Maybe laziness or forgetfulness is the reasoning, but in this World Wide Web full of hackers, many thousands of people are still using the same password for everything they do online.  Some may argue that each password is “different”; however, having variations of the password “ABCD1234” doesn’t count as being different.   If you or someone you know is guilty of this way of thinking, you should really read on.

  

One of the first lines of our privacy defense is the password.  Whenever you sign up to become a member of a website, you need to enter a log-in name and a password.  Most sites will not accept passwords shorter than 8 characters and many require them to be alpha-numeric and case sensitive.  If you choose the password “platypus1”, you will not be granted access into that site if you mistakenly type in “Platypus1” on your next visit.  The password must be an exact match.  So, if you are a registered user on 10 different sites, you need 10 unique passwords.  “Platypus1”, “Platypus2”, “Platypus3”, etc. just won’t cut it. 

In order to try to make each password unique, many people will use different names combined with birthdates.  It’s not uncommon for a man to have “Pamela823” (his wife and her birth date, August 23) for one site, then choose “Henry312” (his son and his birth date, March 12) for another site.  A problem could arise, however, if that man signs on to Facebook using a public hotspot and is hacked.   Once the hacker knows the Facebook password, he could look to see the names and birthdates of the spouse and children.  So, if the Facebook password is “Pamela823”, this hacker will try that same password for an email account.  If that doesn’t work, he’ll look to see the son’s name and try “Henry312”.  Hackers are very good at what they do, so before you know it, this cyber-crook is going through your bank account.

There is a corporation in Virginia called Siber Systems, Inc., that realized how difficult it is for many people to come up with unique passwords.  With this in mind, in 1999 they developed RoboForm, their first product with consumers in mind.  It now has worldwide users numbering in the millions.  Demand was so great that RoboForm is now available in 30 languages.

RoboForm takes your information and each time you register for a site, it comes up with a unique username and password.  You don’t have to do a thing.  The only password you need to remember is the master password from when you first used it.  So, you log on to your computer, enter your master password into RoboForm and RoboForm goes to work for you after that.  It not only generates unique passwords, it remembers them for you.  Another plus is that each password is encrypted, making it almost impossible to be hacked.

Due to the success of the original RoboForm, in 2004, Siber Systems expanded its product line with RoboForm2Go.  This portable version of RoboForm is on a USB flash drive that you plug into your computer.  No matter where you travel, you will have RoboForm2Go with you.  Not only that, it will work in your native language.

RoboForm is the perfect solution for creating unique passwords and then remembering what they are for each site that you visit.  It is a great tool for keeping you safe when you surf the Net.

To add even more protection to your Internet surfing, you should use a proxy server from a reputable company.  Please take the time to visit Privacy Partners and take advantage of the FREE trial offer.  You will be glad you did once you see how safe you feel knowing that you can surf the Internet from anywhere knowing that every time you connect, your information is encrypted.