THE IMPORTANCE OF SHREDDING DOCUMENTS
Imagine getting a phone call from a collection agency claiming you owe thousands of dollars on a loan or credit card taken out in your name. You know you did not open the loan or any credit cards. This may sound like a bad dream or some sort of joke, but for millions of Americans, it is a harsh reality. The Federal Trade Commission estimates that 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year. Some victims can resolve their problems rather quickly; however, many spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and many days trying to resolve their good name and credit records, many without success.
A large majority of people become identity theft victims due to their personal documents getting into the hands of the wrong people. This particular type of identity theft can be easily prevented, by shredding your documents. Many of us believe that identity theft cannot happen to us or are simply unaware of laws that were put in place to protect us, whether it's our own personal documents or a company in charge of customer's/employee's personal information.
There are two main reasons why businesses and households should shred documents; Security and It's the law. We should all practice the act of shredding all sensitive documents, which include documents that contain: account numbers, passwords, PINs, signatures, Social Security Numbers, and Dates of Birth and documents that aren't considered "sensitive", but that contain some personal information. This includes: junk mail, credit card receipts, pay stubs and bank statements.
Are you unsure of where to take your documents for shredding or do you not have access to a shredder? This is not a problem; A-2-Z Self Storage offers walk-in customers a secure document shredding service. We do not go out to off-site locations to shred your documents. We also accept secured boxes and other containers that can be shredded, as well as CDs and floppy disks for proper shredding. We have literature in our office as to our secured process for shredding. The only thing customers need to do is bring us their boxes they wish to shred and A-2-Z Self Storage handles the rest.