Shredding Financial Records

As we are rounding the corner of the first decade in the 21st century, the term Identity Theft has unfortunately, become a household name. Thieves are finding new ways to use and abuse stolen financial data, often creating nightmares for their victims, who must spend countless hours repairing the damage.

While identity thieves have expanded their repertoire to include medical records, pay stubs, and even school records, financial data is still the most coveted and sought out data by identity thieves. Financial data includes your credit card receipts or statements, bank statements, tax related documents, as well as retirement/IRA and brokerage records and house records (such as mortgage and property tax statements). Even in this technological age, it seems we are still swimming in paperwork, and eventually it must be tossed. Knowing what to toss and when can be tricky for most consumers.

Generally, financial experts advise to keep credit utility and other household bills only until you receive the cancelled check. Credit card statements should be kept longer - about seven years (though receipts only need to be kept until your monthly statement comes and is reconciled). It is advised to keep paycheck stubs only until your end of year tax statements come, and bank records can also be tossed after one year. Other financial paperwork, such as IRA, retirement statements, and house records (deeds, titles, etc) should be kept permanently.

So what is a conscientious consumer to do with all of those old financial statements containing such dangerously identifying data?

Shredding your old financial records is an excellent way to protect yourself from identity theft. One of the most popular ways for identity thieves to get your personal information is through "Dumpster Diving", in which crooks rummage through trash bins looking for papers with personal information on it. By shredding your old financial records with a good quality shredder, you are completely eliminating the threat of dumpster divers. Take advantage of free community shredding days or schedule our shredding truck to come to your home. It is secure, on-site, eliminates the worry and the hassle.

Small businesses and corporations typically produce a large volume of paperwork with sensitive data, and professional shredding companies are becoming more and more popular. A professional shredding service allows the business owner to easily and safely get rid of their unneeded financial paperwork, and the service is usually very cost efficient.There is no doubt that identity thieves are here to stay. The good news is you do have ways to protect yourself. Being diligent with where and how you get rid of your financial records is one excellent way to keep your identity safe.

Request a quote online and receive a written price quote within 24 hours.

Call Incred-A-Shred customer service representatives 1-888-467-4744 to discuss your document and paper shredding needs.

How Spending $ on Shredding Can Save you $

Ever wonder how spending money NOW can save you money in the future? Let me explain. I will start with an example of what I am talking about. If you are a small to medium sized, or ever a large organization, most organizations spend money storing old records in a storage facility or with a records storage company. Consider the following example. A law firm has a 30' x 30' storage facility that houses over 500 legal sized banker boxes that are all at least 10 years old. The law firm spends approximately $600 a month for the storage unit. They have had records stored in this facility for over 25 years. Most of these records have never been looked at in over 20 years. So, they are spending over $7200 a year storing these records. Multiply this by the number of years they have had this storage facility, and it adds up to almost $20,000. So, how were we able to save them money. They spend approximately $2500 and we shredded over 400 of these boxes for them on-site for them. They were able to shift their records to a small, $200 a month storage facility with the reduction in 80% of their boxes. So, spending a few dollars enabled them to save almost $5000 a year in storage costs.

Free Community Shredding Day

For Immediate Release:

LOCAL COMPANY TO OFFER FREE SHREDDING SERVICES TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC AS PART OF A NATIONAL CONSUMER AWARENESS INITIATIVE

May 20, 2009

Reston, VA. Incred-A-Shred will join Long and Foster to provide free shredding services to the general public during an event that will highlight the importance of protecting discarded personal information. Incred-A-Shred will have one of their mobile shredding trucks available to shred confidential and personal documents on-site.

The event will be held on Saturday, May 30th from 9 am to 1 pm at Long & Foster Real Estate, 1831 Wiehle Ave, Reston, VA. Members of the public should bring their confidential materials, which will be destroyed free of charge.


For more information:
Contact Long & Foster, Maureen O’Hara at 703-437-3800.


About Incred-A-Shred:
Incred-A-Shred is a locally owned and operated on-site document and media destruction company. They are headquartered in Baltimore. They have a fleet of mobile shredding units that service the state of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and Washington, D. They service commercial, government, and residential customers. For more information call 1-888-467-4744 or visit the web at www.Incred-A-Shred.com.


For reports about what happens when discarded information is not properly destroyed, go to www.naidonline.org/news.html

On-Site Destruction of Hard Drives

The destruction of hard drives is something that is critial and crucial to keeping your employees and your clients identities safe. It is not good enough anymore to just drop your computer or hard drives into the land fill. A safer bet is to have your hard drives destroyed. There are several options to destroy your hard drives. The safest option is to have them destroyed or shredded. It is as simple as calling our office and letting us know you have hard drive destruction needs. We just completed a job for a large client where we destroyed over 1000 hard drives that they had accumulated over 5 years. We had the entire job completed in under 2 hours.

Why you should outsource Document Destruction

Outsourcing is an easy and economical decision to make when it comes to your on-site document shredding needs. NAID (National Assoc. Information Destruction) members provide convenient locked security containers to collect all your confidential documents. The data is destroyed fast and staples, paper clips, film, dvd, and cd's are destroyed with ease. It frees your valuable employees to do their real job. It is cost effective.

Office shredders, on the other hand, are just bad investments. Why, you ask? Let's dicsuss. First of all, you need to go out and purchase one. They are messy and need to be replaced often. They cannot handle staples, film, dvd's, or cd's. Office shredders also take time away from your employees doing their job. Worst of all, office shredders are not consistently used by your employees, creating a "risky situation."

Selecting Incred-A-Shred for all of your shredding needs gives you "Piece of Mind."

Shredding Medical and Dental Records

Ensuring that medical and dental records are destroyed properly is vital to ensuring your identify is kept confidential. Protected Health Information (PHI) is the classification which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has given to personal patient information for which unauthorized release is now a criminal offense. PHI includes diagnosis, prescription billing information, medical history, notes, x-rays, phone messages, and several other relevant pieces of information.

Institutions that must comply with HIPAA are called covered entities. Covered entities include any and all organizations or individuals who retain or collect health related information. This includes larger institutions such as hospitals, medical centers and insurance. There are also small covered entities such as dentists, doctors, counselors, billing centers and many others. Technically, every employer in the United States with completed health insurance applications or injury reports on file is considered a small covered entity under HIPAA.

Destroying ALL discarded patient information is a VERY important requirement of HIPAA. This also includes information on computers. Deleting information does not erase it. It must be destroyed.

No office is too small to benefit from using a shredding firm. A SECURE SHREDDING FIRM is very inexpensive insurance.

INCRED-A-SHRED PLAYS A PART IN MONEY POWER DAY

March 21, 2009

Baltimore, Maryland -- Money Power Day

158 people had their private documents shredded on-site by Incred-A-Shred; a total of 5,432 pounds of materials were shredded in a three-hour period that was free to the Baltimore community
Over 1,500 Baltimoreans attended Money Power Day on Saturday March 21st, and more than 50% of the attendees were low- and moderate-income individuals.
Over 100 individuals earning less than $42,000 per year had their taxes prepared for free
Hundreds of individuals pulled their credit report and met with credit counselors provided by the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Maryland and Delaware
29 homeowners facing foreclosure met with attorneys provided by the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland and Civil Justice
127 youth played Port Discovery’s Money Game, 173 children played the Power Bucks Game, and 65 youth participated in peer-to-peer workshops taught by the Academy of Finance and the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship

About Incred-A-Shred:
Incred-A-Shred is a locally owned and operated on-site document and media destruction company. They are headquartered in northern Baltimore county. They have a fleet of mobile shredding units that service the state of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and Washington, D. They service commercial, government, and residential customers. For more information call 1-888-467-4744 or visit the web at www.Incred-A-Shred.com.

Variables in Using Off-Site Shredding Services

Using an offsite shredding company has some variables in the equation that might make you a bit uneasy to contract these services, especially if you knew about them. Incred-A-Shred only offers ON-SITE shredding services. Back to off site and its limitations. First of all, your document, files, or records leave your location in a box truck that is locked up. They are transported back to a stationary shredder in a building. Hopefully nothing happens on the trip to the facility. Variables out of your control and the off-site shredding company's control include an accident with the truck where your records are stored or the truck is stolen or broken into. Next, the records are received at a warehouse and typically are never shredded the same day, and sometimes not even the same week. Can you imagine all your confidential records sitting in a warehouse for days, even weeks waiting to be destroyed? Which brings me to my last point, when and how do you know that your records have been destroyed. Implementing a program with an on-site shredding partner is the safest option for anyone where document security is crucial.

Residential Shredding

Does it pay to call an on-site company like Incred-A-Shred to shred your outdated records at your residence? Absolutely, it does. Consider the following costs associated with doing the shredding on your own. First, you would need to purchase a shredder. A cheap shredder that does 4-6 sheets of paper at a time is going to cost at least $100. Secondly, you will need to remove all the staples, paper clips, and binder clips before you run your documents through your shredder. Additionally, running 4-6 sheets of paper through the shredder at one time, this will take hours just to shred a few hundred sheets of paper. So, what is your time worth to you?

We can come to your house and shred as much paper as you need to have destroyed for cheaper than what it costs you to purchase the shredder. How do I do this? You would call our office and set up an appointment time for one of our security experts to arrive with one of our mobile shredding units. Show us what you want destroyed and within minutes, it is complete, and you did not have to lift a finger.

Saving Companies $$ on their Shredding Budget

We just received word from one of the local credit unions that we received a "yes" in receiving their on-site shredding business. After receiving the award, we spoke to the facility manager and discussed the reasons we received the award. Here is what he said. "Your company has a straight forward pricing structure and your cost was almost 50% less than our current provider. In addition, everyone is courteous, professional, reliable, and honest at Incred-A-Shred. From the owners to the security experts servicing our firm, everyone cares about servicing our firm. We look at Incred-A-Shred as a business partner, not just another vendor."

Don't Pay by the Minute to have your Documents Shredded

When you are deciding to have confidential records and files shredded, here is a piece of advice for anyone when they are ready to decide what company to use. With respect to pricing, get a firm fixed price for the job, whether is is a per box price or a per pound price. Paying per pound is your best option because you are only paying for what gets shredded. Most companies have a scale mounted on the truck and can give you and exact weight of the materials that will be shredded.

Paying "by the minute" for a shredding company to shred your confidential records has several limitations. First of all, you do not know what you are paying until the job is complete. Second, the longer the company spends shredding your documents, the more money they make. Third, most of these companies have the slowest and most inefficient shredding equipment in the industry. This, in turn, increases the amount on your invoice, due to their slow, inefficient machines. The longer they are on-site, the more you pay. This is like your "time and materials" home improvement contractors.

Bottom line, get a price before the job gets started, and don't let any company tell you we are unsure of what it is going to cost until we are finished the job. This is like having a contractor come to your home, build an addition, and tells you when I am finished, I will give you a price. Crazy, right?

If you want a firm fixed price for your on-site shredding needs, call Incred-A-Shred and we will answer the phone and give you a firm fixed price on the spot.

Keys to a Successful Shred Day with the Community

1. Secure a date and a 2-3 hour block of time with a reputable on-site document shredding organization, like Incred-A-Shred.
2. Advertise the event in the local paper, post it on your website, include a flier in with your mailer to clients or local residents, and make people aware of the exciting event.
3. Make sure you publicize this event at least 30-60 days in advance.
4. Hang a banner outside your office or place of business, spelling out the event date, time, and a title, such as "Protect Your Identity" event.
5. Advise people on what to bring to the event. For example, old tax records, personal files, pay stubs, and anything else that is confidential.
6. Get folks excited about "Protecting their Identity" for free.

Tips to Protect Your Identity

Tips to Protecting Your Identity

1. Monitor your credit report-Many consumers don’t realize their ID has been stolen until they are denied credit.
2. Don’t give out personal information indiscriminately-Confirm organizations you are dealing with are legitimate
3. Be careful with your mail-Don’t use an unsecured mailbox when mailing anything that contains financial information
4. Guard your Trash-dumpster diving is rampant-SHRED!!!
5. Only give your social security number when absolutely necessary-your employer and financial institution may need it but ask anyone else why they need it
6. Pay attention to billing cycles-If your bills don’t arrive on time, follow up with creditors
7. Exercise caution online-before making purchases, look for the icon of a lock in the lower right hand corner of the browser window

Welcome to Incred-A-Shred, On-site, Secure Shredding Service Company

Incred-A-Shred is an on-site paper document shredding and destruction company located in Baltimore, Maryland. We bring our document shredding truck to your place of business and shred on your premises for the most secure document destruction service in the east coast.

Our shredding trucks can be at your company on a regular schedule or on call as needed.
Our mobile document destruction trucks service companies located in Washington D.C., Northern Virginia, Baltimore, Maryland, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the surrounding east coast communities.

Call Incred-A-Shred, 1-888-467-4744 for all your on-site paper document shredding and destruction needs in the Baltimore and surrounding areas or visit us online at www.incred-a-shred.com .