I’ve had one for years. I shread old bank statements, things with SS#, etc, as well as junk mail. The kids love to use it. One day I found my printer was out of paper. They had shred it all.
First off, I did have my identity stolen. The hassle that’s involved (and I didn’t suffer any serious financial or credit damage) more than justifies getting a shredder.
Second, my wife always shredded her notes from meetings, because she was very careful about confidentiality.
But shredders also have their place if you recycle. We can tear up a lot of junk mail and smush it into a single paper bag for the recycling center.
They cost next to nothing, these days, seriously.
I just ordered one. Like I said, before this thread it hadn’t occurred to me that anybody would want one at home.
In what way?
Was it an ex? A roomie? A family member?
Well, statistics vary, but HR Solutions – BLR says it’s a real concern. My ex-employer lost my employee info contained on a tape with a bunch of other ex-employees. They are paying for identity protection services for me for the next year.
I read somewhere that regular ol’ garbage is where most identify theft begins. Most Identity Theft is done by strangers.
We have a shredder. Besides getting rid of a ton of old financial papers lately, and having fun shredding credit card offers into bits (someone posted a link earlier in the thread that showed a torn-up credit card offer being crudely taped together, filled out, and then approved by the company), our garbage gets torn up at times by the stupid raccoons. I’ve seen papers blowing around our neighborhood that could be pretty bad for their owners if they got out. One day I even picked up something from a major sport’s athlete’s agent about financial matters.
We have a shredder. Any financial information and credit card offer is shredded. As Dave works from home, he shreds client information as well.
I had someone steal my identity in Canada. They ran up a massive phone bill, using my name. When I moved back to that province after many years away, it was difficult to prove that it hadn’t been me, in order to get a phone.
A horse?
Now… lining a hamster cage, I can comprehend…but I’m having difficulty imaging how much shred you generate in your house.
Precisely. Fifty bucks and a half hour once a month or so (we let it pile up and have a big shred-a-thon) versus even a small chance of thousands of dollars and months or even years of hassle and effed up credit? No contest there.
In the UK at least, shredders are given different security ratings. Level 1 is a bog-standard strip-cut shredder. Level 2 is cross-cut and Level 3 is cross-cut plus credit-cards and disks. The rating is usually shown on the box.
It’s not a lot. She collects it from a number of sources. My shredder is the size of a tall kitchen garbage can (maybe slightly shorter) and I empty it 3-4 times a year.
We shred all kinds of stuff. Just cuz we can!!
One reason for going to a shredder is I couldn’t stock pile and burn it anymore. Many places have laws against burning barrels. Most rural folks had the barrels. Stacks of of papers don’t burn well in a coffee can or a Weber.
I don’t have one, but I will need to buy one if I’m going to be forced to install Vista:
Sure I have a shredder. My first one jammed after a year, so then I got the better kind that make confetti instead of shreds.
Mostly just privacy from my neighbors - I’ll often find my non-private papers scattered up and down the street whenever it’s windy on recycling day.
I did some dumpster-diving when I was in high school (mostly for electronics parts and stuff) and found lots of information I knew I wouldn’t want getting out, so it never occurred to me not to shred any mail with important stuff on it. I had names, addresses, SSNs, credit card numbers, credit card statements - I knew one of my neighbors had a credit card, billed to his office, that he only used for porn site subscriptions - all kinds of interesting stuff. You can learn a lot about people by sifting through their garbage. I never did anything with any of it, but I can easily imagine someone who would.
Before I bought my shredder, I took stuff to work, tore it in half, and threw half into each of our industrial shredding bins (two different companies were contracted to come on different days and empty their separate bins, for the truly paranoid).
I have one of those little Staples MailMates (heavy-duty enough for most personal purposes, and only $40 after rebate). Big stuff I still take to the office.
A few months ago a BBC consumer programme went round looking at the rubbish left out in the street by various banks and other financial institutions. In several cases they found very sensitive customer information completely unshredded, there for any crook to take away. Very embarrassing for the companies concerned, who got a severe telling-off from the Information Commissioner, the person who polices the Data Protection Act
Just recently I mentioned to my wife that we might want to consider getting a shredder. To which she responded, “I just replaced our old one!”
Oops!
Nope. I get very few documents with sensitive information on - mostly because I always opt out of having anything sent to me by mail when it can come by email. Once every month or two I want to dispose of something sensitive and I just tear it up and distribute the pieces across more than one trash bag. I suppose there is some exposure there, but I don’t want an ugly shredder sitting in my house.