Bank investigates bags of account information left in dumpster

Identity theft waiting to happen? A Valley bank is trying to figure out how some of its records ended up in an open dumpster.

Investigators say it is the No. 1 way an identity thief makes a heist: They root through garbage.

So, how did bags of sensitive information end up in an open dumpster?

On Wednesday WAFF 48 News introduced you to Mohamed Mahdi, a small business owner who rents a dumpster.

"I can show you bags and bags," he said, overrun with trash that doesn't belong to him.

"I opened one, I found the Compass Bank papers, I opened the second, all Compass Bank papers."

Those papers contained customers' personal information.

Deposit slips. Account number. Tax id number. All are numbers valuable to someone trying to steal your identity.

"Probably 40 or 50 id's right there," said Huntsville police detective Dave Bradford, who investigates identity theft.

"Just about on every page here you have enough information to open accounts in every one of these people's names," said Bradford.

Information on people like Joey flippo who said, "I'm wondering why all my bank account information is found in a dumpster."

Flippo called the bank after we dropped by with some of his sensitive information.

The bank cleaned out Mohamed's dumpster as it checks into what went wrong.

And people like Joey Flippo hope that their identity hasn't been stolen.

The bank tells us that they usually run all that paperwork through a shredder before throwing it away.

What are people saying about mortgages today:

Rates on 30-year mortgages edged down last week to a seven-month low. Mortgage-giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to 6.3 percent, down slightly from 6.31 percent two weeks ago. It put rates at the lowest level since they were at 6.24 percent the first week of March.

Bank of Hawaii, Central Pacific Bank, Territorial Savings Bank and Wells Fargo Home Mortgages all cut their 30-year mortgage rates to 5.75 percent this week.

Most people think of a mortgage as a means to an end. After all, you buy a house, not a home loan. But a mortgage is much more than the path to homeownership. It is a financial instrument that must be managed, just like any other financial investment.