In cleaning out a filing cabinet, I found a whole drawer full of documents from my in-laws’ business. The dates are mostly from the first decade of the century. The records are sales tax reports, accounting summaries, receipts for business related expenses, and payroll info (with redacted SSNs). There are also a couple of federal income tax returns for the corporation.
The two owners of the company, my wife’s parents, are both dead. The company itself is no longer a going concern. While most of their former employees are still living, there are no complete social security numbers in the payroll info.
The only identities I can see potentially at risk would be of dead people and a dead company. Shredding all of this stuff using my ordinary household document shredder will take quite a long time. Can I just toss it all in recycling and be done with it, or should I go to the trouble of shredding it myself or paying for a secure document service?
From what you say, it doesn’t sound like stuff I’d be super concerned about, just very mildly concerned. Garbage bag filled with papers and then water? Let sit for a week, smoosh, in trash.
I don’t think I’d recycle it (easy for prying eyes to tell it might be interesting), but I don’t think I’d do anything more than put it in a trash bag.
Security through obscurity is IMO a real thing, and unless you have reason to think someone is going through your trash, should be safe enough for things that you have already determined likely do not have any useful information.
Both my town & my state rep (separately) hold shredding days throughout the year. On the scheduled day, just drive up; don’t even need to get out of your car, unlock your doors/pop your trunk/hatch & they’ll take you bag(s) or box(es) for you, dump it into their big bin, return or trash your bags/boxes as requested & wheel it over to the shredding truck(s) they hired to be onsite to shred it right there on the spot. The town one is run by a different group each time, one of the VFDs or EMS, or Boy Sprouts; they supply the volunteers & benefit from any donations received. Donations are encouraged but absolutely not required.
Check with your gubmint resources; given it’s spring cleaning season I’d bet you have a local one coming up soon.
Documents like that should be shredded, IMHO (or burned, or other means of destroying them). Clearly they don’t belong in recycle where they can be seen by potential fraudsters or identity thieves.
Just to put a coda on this thread, our town’s police department had a shredding event. My wife took all of these documents over there to be shredded. So, everything has been properly destroyed.
<paranoia>Sure they shredded it. They’ve got a squad pawing through all that stuff, looking for incriminating evidence. source: the way police used to set up ‘stings’ where they would send letters to people with outstanding warrants telling them they had won some prize, and then arrest them when they showed up to collect </paranoia>
Don’t think I hadn’t thought of that. Luckily, nearly all of the documents were for people who have shuffled off this mortal coil already. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. </tinfoil hat>
