A fourth grade teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah, bought a box of scrap paper for $20 and discovered it was actually a box of medical records of 28 patients from Central Florida Regional Hospital. The hospital shipped the box via UPS to an audit company in Las Vegas last December. The hospital claims it had been tracking the box since February, but hadn’t told the patients. As for the teacher’s class, her next assignment for the students will be, “Apply for credit card offers using SSNs from the scrap paper box.”

The box “had a document indicating it was sold because the shipping company could not deliver it or find its owner,” and UPS told MSNBC that it keeps undeliverable packages for at least 3 months before liquidating them. What we can’t figure out is how three full months elapsed between early December, when the box was shipped, and the end of February, when the box had clearly already been liquidated and was being offered for resale by a private business.

(Thanks to Sarah!)

“Medical records sold to teacher as scrap paper” [MSNBC]
(Photo: Orin Optiglot)

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.