Crosscut Paper Shredders Protect Your Identity

How to Prevent Identity Theft

According to the World Progress Report millions of people are victims of identity theft every year. This is a real problem if it happens to you, as thieves can use your identity to create credit cards and other documents and run up debts in your name, or worse.

To protect yourself against identity theft the recommendations are to monitor your banking accounts each month and check your credit report regularly. Keeping your personal identifying information safe is also highly recommended. When disposing of bills, papers, statements etc... with personal information, "shredding the documents can help deter potential thieves". To do this is it is a good idea to buy a paper shredder if you get a fair quantity of statements to destroy every month. By taking these elementary precautions, you can save yourself a whole world of trouble and grief.

The first line of defense is to destroy your documents before you throw them out in the garbage. Dumpster diving is a real problem and even if thieves don't get your information from your trash can, they can still get it from the local landfill site. You may also be alarmed to know that a lot of garbage is loaded into ships and dumped in landfill sites abroad, notably in Africa. It is essential therefore that you destroy any documents (or CDs or DVDs with personal information on them). The easy way to do this is to get yourself a good paper or DVD shredder.

For a shredder for the home or small office you should consider one of the many crosscut paper shredders, aka confetti shredders. If you are in charge of a larger office then you will probably want to consider a heavy-duty, commercial or industrial shredder. Heavy-duty shredders are intended for offices that use a lot of paper. They typically accept as a minimum 30 sheets of paper at a time but the very heavy-duty industrial shredders are capable of shredding 700 pages in one go, telephone directories, ring binders etc...

An entry level heavy-duty shredder will destroy up to 30 sheets of paper at a time at a speed of 30 feet per minute. They are extremely robust and can be either crosscut confetti shredders or strip cut shredders.

You must also take safety into consideration. Paper shredders may look harmless but they can in fact be dangerous and are quite capable of removing fingers along with the paper, particular children's fingers. So make sure you check out the safety features such as sensors etc... before buying a shredder.

For a home or office shredder then you can see further details and prices here crosscut shredder For a heavy-duty shredders then you might want to consider the new Fellows Powershred C-420C. It is powered by a heavy duty 1.9 HP thermally protected motor that will accept 22-24 sheets at a time and shred them into pieces measuring 5/32" x 1-1/8". It has hardened-steel cutters for shredding credit cards, staples and small paper clips. It also shuts down automatically and alerts operator in the event of a jam, full wastebasket or open door.

The Fellowes Powershred C-325Ci on the other hand is a Jam Proof Shredder i.e. no paper jams. It is ultra-quiet for shared workspaces and can reduce power consumption by up to 70%. Shreds 22 sheets per pass into 5/32 x 1-1/2 inch cross-cut particles (Security Level 3) Fellowes Powershred C-325Ci

According to Amazon at the moment the besat-selling crosscut paper shredder is the Fellowes W11-C - oabout which one happy customer said "Unopened credit card offers, old bank statements, several checkbook pads I pushed the thing to its limit. The construction is solid, safety features are great (the additional child safety lock on the top is really secure and impossible to override), and this thing can take whatever you throw at it, within reason. " It costs around $64 so not the cheapest, but far from being the most expensive shredder in the world and for general home and small office use it is probably perfect adequate.

It is an unfortunate truth of modern society that there are crooks around who are very keen to get their hands on your personal data. Document shredders won't solve every data security problem you have but at least they will get rid of one headache and for $60 or so it will be money well spent.

Whatever you decide don't forget to destroy all personal data before you dump it in the garbage !