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In the forums, Brad points out that Shred-it, a document shredding company, is offering its services for free at dozens of sites around the U.S. tomorrow. According to the company’s site:
Shred-it®, Office Depot® and Crime Stoppers USA® are helping consumers fight identity theft by organizing the 2007 USA National Community Shred campaign. Community Shred events will be held at 100 Office Depot stores across the country on April 28, 2007 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time.
Shred-it, the world’s leading on site document destruction company and Crime Stoppers USA will bring their expertise to Office Depot stores to help people take action against identity theft and fraud. Shred-it mobile shredding trucks will be on site and consumers are invited to bring all the documents they can carry for shredding. Representatives from Crime Stoppers will offer tips and advice on how to protect yourself against identity theft and to collect voluntary donations that will benefit the local Crime Stoppers programs in each community.
We’ve discussed before which financial records to keep, and how long to keep them. With the increase in identity theft, it’s important to destroy your documents when you purge them. I burn some of mine in a pot-belly stove, but I’ve also begun to shred them, too. (Thanks to the paper shredder my in-laws gave me for Christmas!)
If you have files full of old financial papers, this weekend would be an excellent time to sort through them, archiving those that should still be saved, and taking advantage of this free shredding offer to get rid of those that you no longer need.
[GRS discussion forum: Paper shredding for free, 28 April 2007]
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April 27th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
This is an interesting posting. I do however, have a bone to pick with document destruction companies who say that you need a shredder to protect your documents.
First, idendity theft is actually on the decline. So, to be specific fishing and other types of scams, as well as straight out credit card number theft of other kinds of person-to-person scams are on a severe decline. Whats really a concern is companies who aren’t keeping an eye on their databases.
Second, why do you need a shredder? Why not just buy a pair of scissors? Its a lot cheeper from a personal finance standpoint, and it can be a fun family exercise.
Just my personal pet peeve.
Best,
James
April 27th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
James,
Here in Montréal we have people looking through trash and recycling bins every night looking for documents that can be used for identity theft. They also go through the bins at our local recycling center. And I read an article in the NYTimes recently about an epidemic of identity theft in Arizona, especially around Phoenix. I do think it’s still a problem.
Even if identity theft weren’t an issue, I just don’t want to have other people reading my private papers (bank statements, receipts, printed e-mails, etc.).
I suppose if you’re just shredding receipts you could get by with a pair of scissors, but I typically shred much more than that, and I don’t always have time to shred things every day so they pile up. I just took five archive boxes full of papers to my local shredding service; it would have taken me many hours to put that all through my little shredder at home.
April 28th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Thanks for the tip. I stayed up until the wee hours chunking and sorting all the crapola to be shredded. When I got to my Office Depot, not only was there no truck but nobody in the store knew anything about it.
Bravo.
April 29th, 2007 at 5:01 am
Thanks for the tip.
Didn’t see it until yesterday and I went through stuff and took a couple of boxes of old files.
Luckily for me, there was a truck there and I did some nice & secure house cleaning.
Bravo!
January 17th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Nice post! It’s great to see this information more readily available for consumers. I just wanted to let your readers know about the information available from Fellowes concerning identity theft protection as well:
http://www.fellowes.com/Fellowes/site/aboutus/about_releases_20.aspx
Thanks and keep posting,
Thomas
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I have to say that I agree with your assesment that we all face quite a threat as a result of all the Id theft that seems to be taking place everywhere. For those of you who may think that both the movies ‘the net’ and ‘the net 2′ are just works of fiction, you would be surprised as to how effective the criminals have gotten today. So we have to do all we can to protect our security, and as a result of all this enhanced security, shreding companies are resorting to various means of shredding so that our documents stay that way, shredded. Check this site out and you would be able to see some of the shredders in action,
http://www.shredexonline.com