Paper Shredder

When you want to protect your identity, and keep your family safe from identity theft, you most likely think about keeping your computer safe from hackers, spyware, and phishing schemes. What most people don’t realize is that people still go about stealing another’s identity the old fashioned way. They can pick through your garbage to find the information they need, and you would be none the wiser. When it comes to getting rid of personal papers you no longer need, you should have a good paper shredder in your home office.
A paper shredder will shred each of your documents so that the information is destroyed. While you may think living in a small town means you have nothing to worry about, think again. People looking to steal your identity can be anywhere, and are quite often the last people you would think. Not only is your trash available to anyone who walks past it when you set it out for removal, you never know who is lurking around your local landfill. You may think digging through a landfill is gross, but there are those who won’t care about doing it, as long as they hit pay dirt. Sadly, they usually do.
Make sure you get a paper shredder that totally destroys all information. Your social security number is most valuable, and any documents that have this number should be put through the paper shredder before they are thrown out. Even your birth date is important, and those documents should be put through the paper shredder as well. Any bank statements, credit card statements, and other financial papers should be shredded as well as your bills and other statements. If it is important enough to save, it is important enough to put through the paper shredder when it is no longer needed.
Businesses always have a need for a good paper shredder, and they tend to shred everything. Even papers that may seem innocent go through the shredder. I have even seen bags of money sitting outside of a bank that have gone through a paper shredder. The trick is to get one that guarantees there is no way any documents can be reconstructed. What I saw in the bag was obviously money, but it was shredded in a way that there was no way it could be put together without it being obvious it was reconstructed. That’s what a good paper shredder should do for you and your family.