Prevent Identity Theft with a Shredder

Shredders are great for preventing identity theft.  These devices are used for shredding documents containing personal information into bits and pieces.  Even though shredders serve as a preventive method against identity theft and fraud it shouldn’t be the only prevention method.  Use this site as resource for other id theft prevention and protection ideas.

When picking a shredder don’t choose one that is cheap.  By cheap I mean the design and the price.  Cheap shredders are okay for preventing identity theft, however they don’t come with functions and shredding capabilities that you will need.  Most of the cheaper models shred personal information in long rectangular stripes.  This is very bad, as it would be easy to piece the parts of the document together, especially if you shred occasionally.  Yes, some inexpensive shredders can devour your documents and turn them into tiny little pieces, but they will usually break down faster.  Pick a shredder like you would be picking a new car, because you will want to have it for many years to come.  Also, chose a shredding machine that can take on many pieces of documents and provides credit card shredding ability.  If you look hard enough you can find a pretty good shredder for about $100.  Spend more if you can afford it, but one hundred bucks should be right on target.

So what should I shred to prevent identity theft with a shredder:

1. Anything that you don’t mind never seeing again
2. Anything with your first and last name on it
3. Anything with your address on it
4. credit card statements, banking statements, utility bill statements, etc.
5. car insurance cards, health insurance cards, other insurance cards
6. credit cards* (to protect my identity I personally burn them, but you may want to re-thing that)
7. CDs and DVDs containing sensitive data*
8. Marketing promotions, brochures, and other shreddable media containing identifying info
9. Pictures (yes, they are an identifying element often used for identity theft and assassinations
10. Old work ID’s, Old state and federal IDs, etc

* Not all shredders support this great identity theft prevention feature

No matter what you choose to shred remember that shredding is a prevention technique for id theft and should be utilized with other preventive ways.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking that your identity is safe just because you shred your documents, bills, and credit cards.  A persistent id thief can put pieces back together. However, if you follow my recommendations you should find a shredder that will make it worthless for anyone to play with puzzles.