Community Chat

[Group 5 minus 1]

We burn all of our burnable trash.

[BirkiLady]

@MsCatLuver  Many communities have free shredding days in conjunction with food drives. They are often held in parking lots of local banks. While I use my shredder all of the time, when going through my mom's files and personal documents I took her paperwork to the huge shredding machines. Saved my little machine some wear and tear, saved me hours of time, and helped the food bank! To me, it's a win-win. 

Contact your bank to see if such a program is available and the times and dates. 

[chrystaltree]

I think the risk is very small but it does happen so shredding our financial documents and papers with identifying informtion on them is worth it.  It takes seconds and we risk nothing by doing it.  That does not mean I'm going to by a shredder or one of those stamp things.  I big black marker and tearing papers into small bits works and doesn't cost anything.  

[x Hedge]

By the way, someone may not rummage thru your trash at the pickup site, but there are opportunistic people who do pick through trash looking for what you're throwing away.

In a business setting I've found people willing to look thru bags of collected garbage before finally tossing them. People working trash collection for the city are no less opportunistic.

[Carmie]

If you would have asked me the same question a few years ago, I would have answered " slim to none."

While my DH and I were on vacation, my son who was in his 30's and lived at home, saw men in a pick up truck picking up trash late Tuesday night..into early Wednesday morning.  The same pick up truck came back to the neighborhood and deposited the trash bags back around 5 am.

My son thought it was odd and stayed up the next Tuesday night to see if it would happen again...it did. He told us about it on the phone and we told him to call the police.  He wanted to follow the truck to see where it went, but we told him it was too dangerous.

The next week, he poured ammonia cleaner and other smelly items into the trash bags, and waited, but the pick up truck never came again to pick up the trash.

In our neighborhood, no one went through the trash bags at the house.  They took the bags to a "safe place" and did it.  Then, they returned the bags to the neighborhood to be picked up by the trash company.

if I don't use a shredder, I use a black magic marker and a pair of scissors.  I black out the info, then cut the blacked out sections off of the paper.  The main part of the paper goes into the recycle bin and the blacked out paper into the trash.

If, it happened in my neighborhood, it could happen in yours too, It is not illegal for someone to pick through your trash once it is at the curb.

[Just Bling]

I don't know of any documents that have my ss# on them.

But the answer to your question is:   Is trying to get your identity back after it's stolen worth the cost of $100 paper shredder?

I bought one 20 years ago from an office supply store and to this day, it's working fine.   Invest in the best.

[Its Me LuLuBelle2]

I wouldn't be as concerned about someone at your home going through your garbage as I would be at the garbage plant/recycling center. But, I freely admit I'm a little paranoid about identity theft. I even shred junk mail.

[Mz iMac]

Bodies are not the only things found at dump sites.  People are hired to go through the town/city dump site to look for "shredded" items.

Another group are hired to paste the shredded (strip) items. 

This is why it is best to purchase a shredder that cross shred items into powdery flakes instead of strips.

If you have a strip shredder, mix up the strips & put half in one bag & the rest in another.  Never put all the strips in the same bag/garbage.  This way the "professionals" will not have the whole puzzle to put together.

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To the OP who mentioned she has nothing w/SS#......

All the ID theives needs is a "name and/or street address."  One or both can be used to obtain medical treatment and/or credit cards.

[Peaches McPhee]

The likelihood is indeed probably very low.  If destroying your private papers was a big ordeal or very costly, it might not make sense to do it.  BUT, destroying your private papers is easy and cheap, so it does make sense (at least to me).

[Mominohio]

Why would it matter the amount of risk, when you consider the damage that could be done?

It is so easy to shred or burn the documents so even if the risk is minuscule, why chance it. 

These days, this is just one of those no brainer kind of things that I would never skimp on or stop doing. 

We also don't let our mail lay in the box. We are home when the mail runs and we get it quickly.