(March 16, 2007) -- April 15th is approaching and Americans
are heading to their shoeboxes and file cabinets to locate
sales receipts, financial statements, and mortgage statements.
For many people the filing cabinet looks more like a recycling
bin than an organized system.
While a messy filing system may seem to be just an inconvenience
at tax time, it can be a liability. According to Javelin
Strategy & Research's annual report on identity theft,
paper documents remain the primary source for identity
thieves. If you do not track, organize and shred your
documents your risk for identity theft goes up.
This is especially true during tax season, says Steven
Hastert, president of Shred Nations, a company who offers
shredding services to residences and businesses. "Every
house in America receives documents that list all the
information an identity thief needs on one sheet of paper."
While tax documents are a risk, Hastert says the bigger
risk is not having a routine system for filing and shredding
household documents. "We get calls every day from
people who stopped shredding because they have burned
up one too many shredders. The volume at a typical household
seems to overwhelm the machines."
Shred Nations (http://www.shrednations.com)
solves the problem with a service called Ship 'n' Shred.
FedEx will pick up your shredding box and deliver it to
a certified shredding facility. You can track the materials
the whole way. Most homes need the service every six to
twelve months he estimates.
Hastert also offers four simple rules he believes will
help anyone defend against identity theft:
1) Manage your mailbox. Use a locked mailbox and bring
in mail everyday. Make a note of when bills normally arrive.
Thieves often intercept bills to steal information or
prevent detection.
2) Use a shredding box to collect junk mail and bills
once they have been paid. When the box is full, use Ship
'n' Shred (http://www.shipnshred.com) to shred the materials.
3) Don't save unneeded documents. Some examples of things
that should be shredded immediately are pay stubs, while
bills can be shredded once they are posted to your account.
4) Do an annual cleanout on your filing cabinet. Expired
documents only clutter up your files and can be stolen.
After filing your taxes take a few moments to put all
the documents past their usefulness into your shredding
box.
SOURCE: Shred Nation
