Legal News Headlines

 
Copyright 2008 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

 Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News

 May 12, 2008 Monday

SECTION: BUSINESS AND FINANCIAL NEWS

ACC-NO: 20080512-MW-Shred-days-cut-identity-thieves-off-from-source-0512

LENGTH: 871 words

BYLINE: Paul Gores, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

BODY: 

May 12--Like a lot of homeowners, Len Thorstad had boxes full of old documents -- financial statements, receipts, personal records -- piling up in the basement.

He didn't need the papers anymore. They were from the 1970s, '80s and '90s. But in an age of heightened concern about identity theft, he was leery of just throwing them out.

"There were a lot of documents in there with my Social Security number on them," said Thorstad, of Waukesha. "That's what I was concerned about. You put that stuff in your regular garbage and it leaves your property, and who knows?"

Recently, Educators Credit Union solved his problem. Like a growing number of financial institutions in the Milwaukee area, the credit union hosted a free "shred day" in the parking lot of one of its branches. People were invited to drive over with bags or boxes of unneeded-but-sensitive documents and have them sliced to bits -- on the spot -- in a mobile shredding truck.

"I've been waiting for something like this for a long time," Thorstad said after five boxes of his personal papers were obliterated at the Waukesha branch.

Kate Knox, marketing communications manager for North Shore Bank, said the growing interest in sponsoring shred days can be attributed largely to one thing: "People are concerned about their identity."

When North Shore Bank held a shred day at its branches recently, about 32,000 pounds of paper was destroyed. That's more than four times the amount the bank took in when it held its first such event in 2007.

This month, a shred day that the Wisconsin Better Business Bureau hosted at M&I Bank branches in Wauwatosa, Madison and Appleton collected and shredded 25,000 pounds of paper.

'People are very sensitive'

Robert Johnson, executive director of the National Association for Information Destruction Inc. in Phoenix, said shredding events have been held since the early 2000s, but they have gained in popularity as awareness of identity theft has grown.

Federal Trade Commission polling data suggests there are more than 8 million identity theft victims yearly, and the crime is frequently mentioned in the news.

"People are very sensitive about their personal information, as they should be," Johnson said.

Better Business Bureau spokeswoman Susan Bach said that although online ID heists get the attention, most identity theft still occurs "the old-fashioned way" -- from paper documents -- and that's why shred days are worthwhile.

"Something is stolen out of your mailbox or your garbage can, or your purse is lost. That's how most identity theft occurs," Bach said.

In addition to fear of ID theft, several factors appear to play a role in the popularity of shred days: Most are free, they're fast (compared with the time it would take to destroy boxes full of documents with personal home shredders) and, in many cases, they allow people to watch -- via a camera inside the truck -- their documents being minced.

Event sponsors may set limits on how much paper can be shredded, and nonprofit groups sometimes use shred days as fund-raisers and ask for a fee.

Shredding plants

People willing to pay to have their old documents destroyed can take them to shredding companies that operate a plant, in addition to truck-mounted mobile shredders. For instance, Piranha Paper Shredding Inc. charges a minimum of $10 -- or 15 cents a pound -- to shred documents brought to its plant at 1001 Tesch Court in Waukesha. The papers are dumped into containers and locked until they are quickly shredded, owner Phil Rehberg said.

"For security and liability reasons, they can't go back and visually watch it being shredded. But everything is shredded at the time it's brought in. Nothing is held. It doesn't sit around," Rehberg said.

Piranha sells the shredded paper to a paper mill that turns it into pulp used to make tissue paper and paper towels, Rehberg said.

Companies that supply the truck-mounted shredders for weekend events generally make most of their income the rest of the week by contracting with businesses and offices to collect and destroy paper regularly.

Personal shredders also have grown in popularity, but shred days give people an opportunity to unload a lot at once without having to sit and feed a limited number of pages at a time through the blades.

"If you don't do it on a daily or weekly basis, all of sudden you've got a ton," said Linda Maechtle of Waukesha, who also took advantage of the shred day at Educators Credit Union.

Knox said consumer feedback about shred day has been encouraging, and it looks as though it will become a rite of spring.

"People are now kind of looking for this," she said. "They're looking for an outlet that's a secure place to drop off their material, save some time. They know it's going to be done securely. I think, at this point, we're looking at it annually."

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LOAD-DATE: May 12, 2008