Do you ever wonder what happens to a financial document after you have thrown it away? Did you know that there are Federal Privacy Laws that require you to properly dispose personal and commercially sensitive financial documents? Whether it’s a corporate office or personal home office, taking all the precautions to assure sensitive information is disposed safely is extremely important. Many people may not know the retention policy for specific records and which documents should be shredded right away. Being proactive about financial record shredding can greatly benefit the safety of you and your business.

Proshred® document shredding specialists are fully educated on the destruction process and consult with customers about which documents need to be completely destroyed in order to safeguard private information. Proshred® is an ISO 9001 certified vendor, meaning all employees have gone through an extensive training process for achieving excellence in system performance and customer service.

Here are a few of the recommended documents you need to shred:

Bank Statements:

Bank statements often include information that is considered “gold” to identity thieves, like bank account numbers and other private account information. If you only receive paper bank statements, try signing up exclusively for online statements to avoid anyone stealing information right out of your mailbox.

Old Credit Cards:

If your bank needed to cancel your credit card due to fraudulent activity, make sure to dispose the old credit card properly. Cutting through the magnetic strip on the back of the card is extremely important because it holds encoded information. After you’ve cut the card up into at least four pieces, throw the pieces into two separate trash bags for extra safety.

Payroll Statements:

At first glance, you may not think there is any information on your paystub that can be compromised. However, if it has sensitive information like signatures, account numbers, social security number or date of birth, an identify thief could easily steal this information.

Credit Card Offers:

If you’ve got a stack of unopened credit card offers on your coffee table that you don’t plan on using, you should shred them right away. Someone could easily use the information provided in the offer and open up a credit card account under your name.

In addition to the documents listed above, remember to properly dispose of any other financial records that include social security numbers, sensitive account information, PIN numbers, passwords and signatures. It’s better to be safe than sorry; prevent identity theft by shredding any document with private information that can be compromised.

At Proshred®, your confidentiality is the first and most important concern. Proshred® has developed document security programs for residential, business and home office customers to assure the proper precautions are taken.

Contact your local Proshred® today to learn more about our safe and secure document shredding services.

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