The Houston Shredder

Paper Shredding and the Texas AG

If businesses haven’t got the word, they need to pay attention.  The Texas AG is very serious about protecting Texans from Identity theft.  If you don’t have an active paper shredding policy, you are at risk….in many ways.   Last week the Texas Attorney General’s Office issued new charges and announced a settlement agreement with EZCORP.

Austin based EZCORP, a payday and pawn lending company, has reached a settlement with the Texas Attorney’s General office in which it will pay the state a sum of $600,000.00.  Now you may ask yourself, what would warrant a $600,000.00 settlement?  Failure to do proper paper shredding!  That’s right, EZCORP had improperly discarded customer records in the back dumpster.  Had this been in Houston, they could have called a Houston shredding company, it would have taken about a half hour and cost them less than a hundred dollars.

4 Easy Tips for Paper Shredding at Home.

Many of our customers at Shredding Houston use our service to come pick up their shredding as needed, so they don’t have to worry. Shredding at home can be a time consuming job, especially if you have a consumer grade shredder. It takes time to shred, and even more time to shred properly. Likewise, if you aren’t using a cross-cutting shredder, you aren’t destroying your personal papers securely. This is why so many people find Shredding Houston’s pickup service to be a faster, easier way to the piece of mind that comes when you know your documents are being shredded securely, and you are doing your best to protect you and your family against identity theft. However, from time to time, our customers have important papers they want to shred right away. For these instances, here are five great tips for secure paper shredding at home: 1. What types of documents you need to shred. It can be a little overwhelming to try and figure out just what needs to be shredded. The general rule of thumb is to destroy anything that contains personal information. This includes anything that is printed with your full name, address, social security number, birthday, credit card number, or email address should be destroyed. Also, you should always shred credit card offers, especially any that are pre-approved. Credit card offers tossed into the trash are one of the most common ways thieves commit fraud. 2. Don’t forget about personal correspondence. This is a big one. Many people don’t realize that any information an identity thief can gather about you from your trash can present a risk. If you are throwing away personal correspondence such as birthday cards, letters, or postcards, be sure to shred these first. Any details about the routines or personal habits of you, your friends, or family can help a thief steal your identity and commit fraud. Be safe, not sorry. 3. How to pick the right home shredder. When choosing a shredder, ask yourself two things: How much do I want to spend? How much shredding will I be doing at home? Ideally, you want to purchase a cross-cut shredder for at home shredding jobs. Cross-cut shredders cut your papers vertically and horizontally, offering you greater security. However, if you want to use a less-expensive model, you can go with a strip-cut shredder. These will cut your documents into strips, but are less secure, since a thief could piece documents back together if they are found in strips. If you use a strip cut shredder, buy one that cuts paper into very small strips, to make it more difficult for someone to recreate the original document. Likewise, you want to get a shredder than can handle your job. If you plan on shredding a few highly sensitive documents here and there, a smaller shredder should suffice. However, if you want to shred a larger volume of papers at home, you will need to invest in a larger, more expensive shredder that can handle more papers at once. If you don’t, it will take you much longer than you bargained for to shred your job. 4. Remove staples and paper clips before you shred! A lot of people forget to do this and find themselves sorry when their shredder jams or worse, breaks. Many of the newer, more expensive shredders will survive if you feed them staples and clips, but it’s better to remove them just to be safe. We hope these tips on home paper shredding are useful. For larger jobs in the Houston area, contact Shredding Houston and schedule an appointment for a representative to pickup your personal shredding at your home.

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