Most people believe dumpster divers are looking for food and similar.

That's true in low income areas.

If you live in a medium-high income area, AKA where you don't usually see homeless people around and you can't really tell where the dumpster divers are coming from since you don't really see any person that would look like one around, you're an easy target for scammers, con artists, and fraudsters.

How does this work? What does dumpster diving have to do with it?

Amazon.

People in medium to high income areas have tons of packages delivered to them from Amazon (and other companies) all the time. These dumpster divers aren't looking for food, glass to resell, or anything like that... They want your empty envelopes and boxes.

Why?

The envelopes and boxes have your address, sometimes your phone number and your full name on them. Sometimes, depending on how you do your shopping, they can get the info from you, and someone else living on the same household.

So what?

Say you live with your son and you both have ordered stuff online and both of you threw away the envelopes or boxes the stuff came in. They will be looking at your house until they see your son leave, then they will call you, and make up any kind of story (mentioning your son's full name, address, number as "proof" that he is with them) and try to get money out of you.

I've had them call me telling me my son crashed and they want me to reinburse for the damages or they'll call the cops cause he's drunk, they've said they have kidnapped him, they've told me he got in a fight and killed someone so they need me to pay them to let him go, and a bunch of other stories.

I found out all of this from the police dpt directly after reporting the scam calls I'd been receiving.

How do you stop them?

Tear apart all of your personal info from envelopes and boxes before disposing of them, then put them in a separate bag when throwing them out. They'll grab the bag with the envelopes and such leaving the rest alone and will eventually leave you alone as they realize they won't get any more info from you anymore.