Info On Los Angeles Document Shredding: Shred Or Keep?

By Author: Ruby Badcoe
Total Articles: 71

In this era of fast, world-spanning Internet and privacy issues, nothing is more important than protection from identity thieves. Businesses and individuals alike scramble to find ways to safeguard their sensitive documents, and so go about looking for Los Angeles document shredding companies for those they can do without. To help you, here's a look at things that you should keep and things you should have sent to the shredding company:

What to Keep

First of all, you should know which documents need to be kept indefinitely– these are still gold mines in the eyes of identity thieves, though, so you should keep them as secure as possible. The birth and death certificates of the members of your family for instance, should always be kept, as well as your marriage license, house deeds, living wills, etc.

Receipts

As much as possible, you should get rid of the receipts you’re given, be it from a restaurant you visited or from your ATM transaction. This can be especially troubling if you are paying with your credit card, as some of your information might appear on the receipt.

Temporary Documents

There are certain documents that you should keep for a set amount of time, and when the period expires, you should look into disposing of them as well. For example, your tax records should remain in your possession for at most seven years, just in case the IRS comes knocking on your doorstep for a review. Likewise, any pay stubs or bank statements should last about a year on hand.

Junk Mail

This is something that many people fail to take into consideration– after all, you simply throw junk mail into the trash, right? This can actually be quite appealing to identity thieves, especially credit card offers from banks or mail simply addressed “to occupant”. Should someone obtain some of your personal information, it’s only a matter of filling out these forms.

Make sure that you choose reliable Los Angeles document shredding companies to help you get rid of these sensitive documents. For more information, read fraudpreventionunit.org/2010/01/21/document-shredding-what-should-you-shred-and-when-should-you-shred-it/.