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Dumpster Diving ID Thieves Hit Blockbuster
Police: Customers Credit Information Stolen

 

ENNIS, Texas -- A careless moment by some store employees could lead to months of hard work by thousands of store customers, who might be forced to reclaim their credit standings.

 

This week, Blockbuster customers learned their credit information might not have been secure with store personnel. Personal account numbers could have fallen into the wrong hands after store employees discarded the information into a trash bin behind the Ennis Blockbuster location.

According to police, identity thieves went "Dumpster diving" in the trash container and found thousands of store records that included credit card numbers.

 

Ennis police believe Ana Gutierrez was among the customers whose credit information was stolen.

 

"I would never have imagined my info would be stolen," she said. "Not from a Blockbuster. How do you just throw it in the trash … personal information … just throw it in the trash."

 

Investigators played a store surveillance tape for NBC 5 that showed a woman loading hundreds of dollars' worth of merchandise into her shopping cart. The woman paid for the goods with a prepaid MasterCard, but the account number had been stolen.

 

Police said the suspects found 90 pages of credit card numbers inside the Dumpsters. Detectives have recovered only two of those pages.

Ennis police received a tip from Wal-Mart employees and arrested Ricky Hunt and Angela Arrendondo, two of the accused Dumpster divers. Two other suspects remain at large, according to police. Investigators said they have surveillance video of the two suspects but lack their identifications.

 

Blockbuster officials told NBC 5 the company's top concern is the privacy of its customers. A company statement said policy requires employees to destroy customer information such as credit card numbers when it no longer is kept on file.

 

Gutierrez said a transaction as simple as renting a video should not require her to rebuild her financial life.

 

"It's overwhelming," she said. "And it's all because people did not dispose of the information like they should have."

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Confidata document destruction located in Utica New York, is a member of NAID and follows FACTA and HIPAA records destruction requirements. CONFIDATA is a division of Empire Recycling Corporation

 

 

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