Document Shredding Protects Against ID Theft

publication date: Nov 8, 2008

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author/source: Jonathan Copsey / STAFF

By Jonathan Copsey / STAFF

Mike Ray, of Shredderman Document Destruction Services, Inc, shows off his office and home lockboxes. He specializes in shredding important personal and business documents to prevent identity theft.

Once every 76 seconds. That is how often identity theft happens in the United States. Such a theft can ruin your credit and reputation, causing your hard-earned money to go astray and putting a very black mark on your bank account.

Thankfully there are people who try to help. Two such people are Terry Mechling of Allstate Insurance and Mark Ray of Shredderman Document Destruction Service Inc., and they’ve teamed up together to help the citizens of North Fulton protect their identity.

Two document destruction days were held courtesy of Allstate with Ray’s shredding company to take any and all important documents off citizens’ hands to be safely destroyed.

“The average person is taking their junk mail and rips it in half either in the garbage can or the recycling bucket,” said Ray. “That confidential document is sitting on the street for people to walk by and steal. Everybody gets invitations for credit cards.”

“After a while, office shredders burn out or become jammed,” he added. Ray provides customers – either business or residential – with a secure bin to use that Ray picks up once a month. Ray, who is bonded and certified, takes those confidential papers to an industrial shredder where they are destroyed, creating 1,500-pound bales that are then recycled by the Kimberly Clark Corporation. 

“We’re talking about the safe destruction of documents,” said John Heid, communication consultant for Allstate’s southeast region, explaining the dangers of important documents in the wrong hands. “Anything that has your name, address, obviously social security on it is huge. The most important thing is keep the birth certificates and marriage licenses under lock. Keep them safe. Keep tax returns for seven years and probably three or four months worth of other bills and statements and safely destroy the rest. You don’t want someone getting your information.”

According to City of Milton police, identity theft is one of the most common crimes they deal with.

“It’s more of a concern that they don’t get [ID problems],” said Terry Mechling about Allstate’s Identification Restoration program. “One customer was in the process of looking through his insurance and found four houses that he didn’t own. His information was being used to buy houses and people were living in them and not paying the mortgage.” Allstate’s program helped the man file the proper papers and pay for a lawyer to clear his credit.

The Identification Restoration Program is an endorsement on the homeowners or renters’ insurance and provides up to $25,000 in aid to help combat the thief. According to Mechling, the average cost to fix the problem in Georgia is $14,000 in legal fees, but Allstate has added more to help recoup lost workdays and other such costs. It can take up to a year to clear up.

All this help comes at only a few dollars a month added onto your insurance.

Heid summed up Allstate’s concerns best: “You don’t know where your paper goes when it’s in the trash. Better to be safe than sorry.”

For more information, contact your local Allstate Insurance agent. For more information about Shredderman Document Destruction Services, call 678-508-0003.