Tax Preparer Tosses Sensitive Records In Dumpster

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A Spartanburg tax preparer says she unknowingly dumped boxes of records, some of which included personal information

By: GRAEME MOORE | WSPA . Published: August 02, 2012.

A tax preparer who closed her business three years ago tossed several boxes of old records, some of which contained sensitive personal information.

The records were found Thursday morning in a recycling bin off Fernwood-Glendale Road behind the old Ingles supermarket in Spartanburg.

While most of the documents were just invoices, investigators with Spartanburg Public Safety found several records containing social security numbers with names and dates of birth.

“You could ruin several people’s lives, financial stability, with this information,” said Detective John Burgess.

The documents were tossed Wednesday by Peggy Garland-Coleman who closed her popular CPA business more than three years ago.

Garland-Coleman said she had spent several days weeding through old records before tossing them, and she says she thought she had sifted out anything sensitive.

“This was an oversight on my part. So the only thing I can do to prevent this in the future is shred everything or burn everything,” the 73-year-old lady said Thursday afternoon.