Protect Your Confidential Waste (With A Shredder)
A shredder is one of the most essential items for any business or individual to have and use, yet one that is highly overlooked. Confidential information are almost always included in our correspondence, and some of them are not always necessary to keep. These unwanted paperwork are often tossed into the trash without any thought about how they will be handled or where they may end up. With identity theft on the rise, extra precautionary measures must be taken to minimize the risk of you being the next victim. Anything that can identify you, or any financial account papers that you have, must be shredded beyond recognition. Today’s identity theft criminals are highly sophisticated, and getting your information in their hands could change your financial landscape and possibly take you months and sometimes years to recoup.
Important Shredder Features:
- Cross-cut capability – some shredder simply take sheets of paper and cut them into dozens of long, narrow vertical strips the length of the page and although it is difficult to reassemble these strips, it is not impossible! Purchase a shredder with cross-cut capability, which cuts these strips horizontally as well as vertically, or a cross-cut shredders that cut paper into micro diamond-shaped pieces which are even more challenging to reassemble. Shredders with intricate cutting patterns are way more secure.
- Multiple pages simultaneous shred – shredders are rated by how many pages they can shred at a time. For example, a single-page shredder requires you to insert only one page at a time. A ten-page shredder will shred a stack of ten pages at a time, and so on. A higher page rating means less work for you, as well as a lower risk of running the unit at its maximum capacity which can cause overheating over time with excessive use. Think about it! A unit rated for ten pages requires ten insertions to get rid of a stack of 100 pages, while a single-page unit requires 100 insertions!
- Ability to Shred Credit Cards, Compact Discs, and Staples – simply cutting up old credit and debit cards into small pieces and tossing them in the garbage is not a proactive way to safely discard of your cards. It’s very easy for ID thieves to reassemble and use them, especially if the card being disposed of is a replacement card with the same account number as an existing card. Most modern shredders can shred credit cards with the same cutting efficiency that they shred paper, with the only exception that they must be singularly inserted. Some shredders can also shred CD’s and DVD’s that may house sensitive financial or personal information.
- The point here, is to purchase and use a shredder to get rid of your documents you no longer need that contain highly sensitive information. Why take unnecessary risk when there is a simple solution?
