Dumping Of Consumer and Personel Records By Copelands
July 7, 2007
Sensitive documents from a recently closed Pensacola restaurant are found, *trashed, in *several area dumpsters.
The documents, from *Copeland's, include *employee's personal information, and social security numbers...and *customer's full names, and credit card numbers.
Now, some are asking *how they got there, and why.
Boxes, and boxes of sensitive personal information dating from 1999, to 2006... Credit card numbers...Full names...Maiden names...Addresses... All, left for trash, in dumpsters behind a Navy Boulevard strip mall.
Dollar General Store Manager Carolyn Munhollon: "I've got the credit card number itself, the full 16 digits, the name of the person, the expiration date." Carolyn Munhollon manages the Dollar General, and found the papers.
Carol "I've got 4 dumpsters out here and three was pretty much full with copeland's information.
Copeland's restaurant in Pensacola *closed last month....
Last week, owners say former employees broke into the closed restaurant, to steal things.
But that's not how owner Tom Cerullo says these documents ended up in the trash.
He says he hired a couple of people who used to work at the restaurant to clean out a nearby storage locker.
Cerullo says he thought the papers would be taken to the dump.
Instead, they ended up here...
Radio Shack Mgr. Geof Huber: If everything's been secured by the police and sheriff's department, it's not good news that it's here but its good news its secured .
The Federal Trade Commission *requires employers to *safeguard consumer information, properly *disposing of sensitive material - including social security numbers and credit card info - by, for example, shredding it.
While Cerullo, who I talked to by phone tonight, says he 'didn't know' that kind of information was *in the locker,
Escambia County Code Enforcement Officer S. Thagouras says according to Florida State And Escambia County Law, protection of that information *is the *business owner's responsibility...
And with over 5 hundred pounds of documents, *felony charges, could be filed.
What's more, because *financial records and personnell files were found, *each could constitute a federal offense..
Plus, *charges of up to ten thousand dollars, per incident/record.
Carol: "They could have found these credit card numbers and if they'd gotten into the wrong hands, identity theft? That would have been horrible"
The people who found the documents said they *had to have been dumped *today, because the dumsters had just been cleaned out, the day before.
Right now, *all documents are in the hands of Escambia County Code Enforcement to be used as *evidence, in their investigation.
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