Shredders

Shredders are vital in protecting your identity.

Shred ANY paperwork that has ANY of the following on it:

• Your name
• Your address
• Your e-mail address
• The last 4 didgets of your credit / debit cards
• Your National Insurance Number on it
• Your date of birth

This includes shredding ALL:

• junk mail addressed to you and/or your address
• all receipts when you have proceeded them or checked them against your bank statements
• all bank statements that are more than 6 years old
• letters that you no longer want that are addressed to you

Believe it or not, a thief can steal your identity with just one of the above pieces of information - it doesn't not necessarily require two of them.

Lots of people just tear up letters, receipts etc, but this is not sufficient. 

Lots of people buy a shredder thinking this is sufficient, but you MUST make sure it is a cross cut shredder.  This means it shreds the paper in 2 directions, creating small diamonds out of the paper which would be almost impossible for a criminal to piece back together.  If you get an ordinary shredder, it will cut your paper into thin strips which, sadly, criminals can and do paste back together to find out the information that was on the original document.

So don't risk it, get a cross cut shredder and shred all paperwork you are not keeping.  Then either recycle the paper, use it for animal bedding or compost it in your garden.