Why you need a paper shredder for home and business

Article: Why you need a paper shredder for home and business

In this Information Age, computers, printers, and copiers are everywhere - at home, at your company, or at your business, and these machines discharge papers more than ever before. These papers are useful to you so you keep some and discard some after use, but be careful what you get rid of because some papers may contain important
information, and if they fall into wrong hands, it costs
you money and time, or it may break you down.

According to FTC's (Federal Trade Commission) survey, 2002's
identity theft losses to businesses and financial institutions
totaled nearly $48 billion and consumer victims reported $5
billion in out-of-pocket expenses.

Every minute, some identity thieves will visit someone's
dumpsters and garbage cans. Sometimes, private investigators
and government investigators do it, too; or it can be anyone.
You'll probably be surprised to hear this in the news: Some
photographers or paparazzi dive in celebrities' garbage cans
and trash bins, collect items they discard, take pictures,
sell pictures and sell these famous persons' and stars'
"collectible items" for thousands of dollars. It's happening.

To prevent identity theft and fraud, you need to destroy,
prior to disposal, unwanted confidential, private, or
personal documents thoroughly. A paper shredder can do a
good job, unless you can find a safe and better method.

You should buy a paper shredder for your home, and if you
are a business owner, buy one for every office.

A cheap low-end paper shredder costs from $20 to $40.
When you feed a sheet of paper into a shredder, it cuts
paper into a 1/4-inch-wide, ribbon-like strips. If strip
cut is not good enough, you may want to purchase a
more expensive cross-cut paper shredder. It shreds papers
into unreadable particles; therefore, it's more secure.

If you have too many papers to discard and don't have time
to shred, you can hire a professional paper shredding company.
Nowadays, it's a big business to shred discarded papers.

When shredding papers, watch your dangling tie or necklace;
it might get caught between the blades of a shredder.

There is so much information that can be used fraudulently.
Many of them are listed below. Make sure you shred only papers
you'll throw away into a trash bin. Certainly, you don't want
to shred any documents that you need or required by law to keep.

At home:
- Returned checks, old checks, cancelled checks, check books
and their carbon copies. A thief needs only your one check
from your trash can, and by using a computer, he can make
several counterfeit checks easily and loot your checking
account.
- Any papers that have your social security number on it.
- Any papers that have your driver's license on it.
- Any papers that have your credit card number or debit card
number on it.
- Any documents that contain your name and address on it.
- Any documents contain personal and private information.
- Documents that contain confidential information.
- Pre-approved credit card applications.
- Department of Motor Vehicles, license plate notifications.
- Address labels from your mails and magazines.
- Credit, debit, and bank statements, their carbons copies,
credit solicitations.
- Legal documents.
- Medical bills, medical records, medical insurance forms.
- Dental bills, dental records.
- Email addresses, old bills, or old utilities bills, receipts.
- Deposit slips, ATM receipts.
- Any copies of all the above papers.
- Student IDs, military IDs, volunteer IDs, association IDs,
membership IDs.
- Papers contain Internet IDs, online account username,
passwords, software passwords, PINs.
- Expired visas, expired passports.
- Employment records.
- Check stubs.
- Investments and insurance papers.
- Birth certificates.
- Voter registration papers.

At your business:
- All materials in at-home section above but they relate
to your business.
- Lists of your suppliers and customers. These information are
diamonds and gold to your business competitors, and you don't
want these lists fell into their hands.
- Any papers that have Sales Tax IDs, Federal and State tax IDs.
- Old employee records, old employee applications, old invoices.
- Leases, contracts, insurance, agreement documents,
top-secret papers.
- Lending and securities documents.

Article: Why you need a paper shredder for home and business
By John Nguyen and Associates