It is not uncommon for companies that do business with your personal data to go belly-up. To save money, some of those businesses rent offsite storage places for long term records managment rather than using a reputible vender like Iron Mountain. Of course, when the renter falls behind, the storage manager will usually sell the contents to the highest bidder (& usually for a terrific price for the buyer) at auction.
A few quotes from the article that might make your hairs stand up:
Nothing in Maine law prevents storage facilities from selling sensitive financial, personal or medical records to the highest bidder, when their original owners do not pay their storage bills. And that is becoming a real concern, with the failure of several dozen mortgage companies in Maine since the recession began one year ago.
In the Scarborough case, the Maine Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection obtained a court order to confiscate the records of the shuttered mortgage company, which was legally obligated to maintain the documents. The records had been generated by Ocean House Mortgage and Cape Mortgage Co. in Cape Elizabeth, which went out of business last summer.
"Current law places no burden whatsoever on the facility operator to inventory what is in the unit, identify records that might be confidential and notify regulators," said Will Lund, superintendent of Maine's Consumer Credit Protection Bureau.
Here is the link or you can copy & paste
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story_pf.php?id=229557&ac=PHnws
into your address field to view the full article.
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