Matt Malone makes money on the side finding merchandise in dumpsters. Last week, he was picking through a Big Lots bin when he found an unusual product.
"It's pretty easy to tell it's not actually a product, but someone's life,” Malone said. "They've got their grandchild. They've got their credit card. They got their Social Security card."
Joyce Andrews lost her bag a month ago. It was thrown into the trash last week and recovered and returned Thursday afternoon.
"I can't believe we finally found it,” Andrews said. “I thought it would be somewhere in the house.”
The happy ending is the only unusual part of a far too common scenario.
"It's all over,” Malone said. “Every place that I've been to, there's all kinds of data out there."
In that same dumpster, Matt found bank account numbers, employee salaries, store profits and loss, and even instructions to log into Big Lots' computer system.
"And they even sell a shredder on aisle four,” Malone said.
Malone's a security specialist in his 9-5 where he helps companies close leaks like this. He says this could have been easily prevented.
"That information doesn't need to be known, so shred it, shred it, shred it,” Malone said. "That's the No. 1 big thing."
Matt says Big Lots is already fixing the problem, but it's really a matter of staying ahead of the problem.
"They're talking about how to do loss prevention, but the problem is that it's just checking the box, and checking the box isn't good enough anymore because you need to check the box and then test the box,” Malone said.
Malone's security company hosts a free class each month on how to protect your identity. The next class it April 4.
Go to AsseroSecurityInc.com to sign up.