Most everyone has personal papers and sensitive documents that aren’t needed any more. Throwing them out in the trash at the curb is unsafe because they can be stolen by identity thieves. To ensure that these personal items are destroyed, individuals should take advantage of Residential Shredding Services.
Read the information below to learn about keeping your personal information and identity safe.
- Never throw credit card bills, bank statements, or other types of mail that list account numbers into the trash. Documents that contain a social security number should never be thrown away with the household trash either. Mail or papers that contain telephone numbers and addresses should also be kept out of the trash can.
- Home owners who have a personal shredder can mark through names, addresses and account numbers with a black felt tip pen before placing them into the shredder. This adds an extra layer of protection to paper shredding.
- After shredding documents with a personal shredder, don’t place all of the shreds into one trash bag. Divide up the shredded paper and place it into separate bags. Don’t place all the shredded papers into the trash can in the same week. Only place a portion of the shredded material into the trash can at once.
- Individuals who want to completely destroy CD’s, DVD’s or VHS tapes can physically break them into small pieces before putting them into the trash. Just like with the shredded documents, don’t place all the broken pieces of the discs into the trash together. Holding a magnet over the discs is a way that individuals can erase the information on them.
- Contact a qualified company that provides Residential Shredding Services in the area. When individuals have a shredding service destroy their important documents and discs, the information is completely destroyed, and it cannot be stolen by identity thieves. The documents are loaded into the shredding truck and individuals can see their documents being shredded by watching the monitor on the outside of the vehicle.
Browse the website to learn additional information about the importance of shredding personal documents to prevent identity theft.
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