Shredding Service | Paper Shredding | Document Shredding | Shredder

Shredding in the Ozarks

2010-01-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

Springfield Loan and Finance needs a new shredder. How do we know this? Because when it came time to shred their customers' personal information their shredder broke. At least this is what a company spokesman claim. Then instead of taking care of the problem the simply dumped the records into the trash. They were discovered and reported to KY3.

To help prevent this every business should document the shredding and have it supervised by a manager. This prevents employees from getting lazy and just dumping it in the trash. An alternative is to hire a shredding service who will make it easy to comply with your document destruction program and provide you with a certificate of destruction. But the bonus is it is cheaper than replacing shredders all the time.

AG Investigates Medical Records Disposal

2010-01-29T11:21:00.000-08:00

The North Carolina Attorney General is investigating Prompt Med, formerly known as Battleground Urgent Care for throwing medical records in the trash. The fine for such an offense is up to $5,000 per instance. At 600 medical files that can be up to $3 million.

It is amazing that any medical practice would gamble $3 million to save $100 on shredding.

Metlife Move Goes Awry

2010-01-26T16:20:00.000-08:00

On the weekend of weekend of January 16 the Metlife office in Rockford, Illinois moved to a new location. This wouldn't make the news but in the process they left dumpsters full of their customers private information. The documents were discovered by an out of work machinist looking to collect recyclables. He notified the news and police to the problem. Michael McRaith, director of the Illinois Department of Insurance, and MetLife are investigating the incident [article].

When you are planning an office move don't forget to line up a shredding service. It is a great time to implement a document retention plan. Plus, why pay to move boxes of documents you don't even need.

Medical Identity Theft

2010-01-26T13:08:00.000-08:00

As the nation debates Health care reform one way to cut costs is to eliminate waste. One source is through medical identity theft. This breaks down into five basic types:

Friends and Family. An insured person gives his insurance card to an un-insured friend or relative to get medical treatment.Stolen information.
An un-insured person steals a card to get treatment.
Insurance fraud. An employee at a medical practice processes fictitious claims.
Drug addicts. Someone steals information to obtain drugs for their addiction.
Organized crime. A fake medical facility is created and fictitious claims are run through it.

To help prevent theft keep a close eye on your insurance card and check your statements to see if there are ever any claims that are not valid. Every medical practice should take steps to safeguard medical records.

Dumping Records Costs $35,000

2010-01-21T19:05:00.000-08:00

Gregory Navone of Las Vegas, settled with the FTC for FACTA violations at his two Nevada mortgage companies. Navone owns First Interstate Mortgage Corporation and Nevada One Corporation. The settlement stem from an FTC complaint filed in December 2008. The companies improperly disposed of about 40 boxes of sensitive consumer records. The boxes contained tax returns, mortgage applications, bank statements, credit cards statements, drivers’ licenses, and credit reports.

The dumping of the records was in violation of the FACTA disposal rule. The FTC also ruled that he misrepresentations the data security practices. He was ordered to pay $35,000 in the settlement. [article]

Shredding in ArkLaTex

2010-01-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

SouthTrust advisers has a treasure trove of information for any identity thief sitting right behind their offices in Bossier. The firm had thrown all of their customer's personal information into the trash. This includes social security numbers, address information, and account numbers. [story and video] The firm provides financial services.

One of the best parts of the story is the police officer saying it is not a crime. He needs to read about FACTA because this is a clear violation of the law. In any event it is hard to trust a company with your financial needs when they care so little about the well being of their clients.

How Much is a Shredding Service

2010-01-13T16:04:00.000-08:00

I recently posted about people who want shredding but don't want to pay for it. One can only assume that some of these people will end up burning the documents. I most cities it is illegal to burn trash but I will leave that to the police to find and prosecute. What I do want to mention is the cost of the job not done well. A Pacific Beach woman tried to burn documents and managed to start a fire in her garage that spread to the car parked outside. The initial estimates are for $80,000 in damages. [report]

This sure makes the cost of a shredding service seem small by comparison.

The Security Paradox

2010-01-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

One of the most interesting calls we get is for the homeowner with a box or two to be shredded. They will begin by telling you how valuable their papers are. You explain to them that you understand because we shred thousands of tons a day from banks, hospitals, police stations, insurance companies and the like. Then you get the non-committal humph that their papers are much more valuable than what we shred for anyone else.

Since the homeowner is convinced that they are in possession of the worlds most valuable documents you quote them a mobile shredding service. They will say that it is much too expensive. Never mind that it is less than what a plumber would cost just to ring their doorbell. Maybe these papers aren't more valuable than gold after all.

Since price is the issue we suggest Ship 'n' Shred. It is just as convenient but saves money. They don't like this idea because of the incredible value of these documents and how they must witness the shredding. It is best to skip telling them that if the papers were so valuable why did they trust the mail system to deliver them. Apparently the personal information can only be used after it is delivered the first time.

So you are left with information so valuable they must witness the shredding but they want you to come out in a $250,000 truck for near nothing. We call this the security paradox.

How Long Should We Keep This

2010-01-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

A common question we get is how long people should be saving their documents. The short answer is: it depends. Every type of document has a different retention schedule based on legal requirements and good business practices. It makes good sense to set up a business wide retention policy for your business. Once done make sure it is reviewed by your lawyer and accountant.

To get your started here are basic retention schedules for businesses and homes.

One Quarter of Data Breaches are Paper

2009-12-11T13:12:00.000-08:00

According to data releases by the ITRC, at least 27 percent of the data breaches in 2009 were from paper being documents being stolen or found in the trash. This was based on publicly disclosed breaches. That puts the number of breaches by paper at 125. It is impossible to say how many people were affected. [full article]

While it is the lost/stolen disks that get all the press there is still a real threat from paper documents. Most computers require passwords but the storage area is wide open for any employee.

Atlanta CPA Needs a Shredding Service

2009-12-04T08:10:00.000-08:00

Gregg Bossen, a CPA in Atlanta, should be spending his day starting a shredding service. His original plan of hoping his employees would assign themselves the extra work of shredding didn't work so well. Instead of wasting hours with an office shredder they just left personal tax documents in the trash. They were found by someone looking to recycle boxes. Now he has to answer to the media and police about a data breach. [video]

The numbers are easy to compute: it takes an employee at least three hours to shred a box of documents. At a pay rate of $13/hour that is $39 per box. Then you add in the cost of the shredder, its maintenance, and regular replacement the cost grow. Since we don't know the costs of the loss in clients and fines when they fail to do the job we won't add those in. Compared to a shredding service in Atlanta that will charge less than $7 per box it just doesn't make sense to do the work in house.

Shredding Needed in Battlefield , MO

2009-12-02T16:22:00.000-08:00

There is no town to big or two small to be immune from business tossing personal information into the dumpster. The latest to make the news is Nation Wide Credit Counseling. They were based in Battlefield, Missouri, just outside of Springfield. It appears that the company went out of business and then threw all of their client files into the trash. Since they were dealing with credit they had their entire financial profile in the trash. [full story]

It might be time to call a Missouri Shredding Service.

Stay Safe Buys PRIDE

2009-12-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

Stay Safe Solutions of Sacramento has purchased the document shredding and recycling businesses PRIDE Industries. Since PRIDE is a non-profit I hope the proceeds go to their charitable mission. The acquisition is part of Stay Safe's aggressive growth strategy.

ACORN Documents Found in a Dumpster

2009-11-23T16:05:00.000-08:00

Personal documents have been found in an ACORN dumpster. It is easy to tell who is at fault because they were nice enough to leave them in red ACORN bags [picture]. If you are a political organization in the cross hairs you would think they wouldn't be so cavalier with personal information. This is only another example that if you leave shredding to low level employees with no supervision you are begging for bad press. The only options are having a manager supervise the entire process or hire a shredding service. It is hard to imaging paying two people to shred at 20 sheets per pass would be cheaper than one person with a shredder that does 35,000 pages at a time.

Data Breach Notification

2009-11-19T06:39:00.000-08:00

It has long been assumed that if businesses would notify consumers of data breaches that the consumer would know to be more vigilant about identity theft. However, a new study by Javelin Strategy and Research found that is not the case. While 19% of the people who were sent notifications suffered identity theft, only 2% attributed it to the breach.

The notifications are obviously not clearly relating their intent. It might also be the some frivolous notifications make them all meaningless. I support that thefts of data should always be notified some data breach notification laws go too far and can only end up in "crying wolf" scenario.

FACTA Red Flag Rule

2009-11-02T14:49:00.000-08:00

The FTC announced that they are postponing the FACTA Red Flag Rule compliance deadline from 11/1/09 to 5/1/10. If this sounds like a broken record it is. The rule was first to go into effect on 11/1/8 but was postponed until 5/1/9 then again until 11/1/9 and now it is postponed once again. I think we are too a point where the rule as written is never going to go into effect. It is time to write one that can.

Shredding Backup Tapes

2009-10-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

Tech Target recently wrote an article on what to do with backup tapes that are no longer needed. They suggested shredding them instead of selling them into a secondary market. The reason is that it is easy to find data on recycled tapes. For a backup tape it could be anything for marketing material to your customers personal information.

f your company is sitting on boxes of tapes or just a couple then a hard drive shredding service can help. They will make your tapes little bits, not just erased.

Morgtage Documents in a Dumpster

2009-10-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

Creative Financial Services of Tampa Bay Inc is the just the latest mortgage broker to dump their customers' personal information in a dumpster. They filled up the dumpster behind Hair Visions Salon where the records were discovered and reported to the news and police. The news went to the offices of Creative Financial Services and found a second dumpster full of mortgage files. They must have filled their own dumpster and then started dumping all over the city. There may be more that were not reported to the authorities.

While there are many situations where being "creative" is good; document security is not one of them. There is no substitute to a paper shredding service turning all of your private information into tiny bits and then pulping it.

Questionable Shredding Practices

2009-10-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

FirstMerit Bank has some questionable security standards for their shredding. They store material waiting to be shredded in bins outside of their branches. The weakness became apparent when three bins were stolen. It is unclear what information was in the bins.

Please store paper in a secure area before it is shredded. If you don't have enough space you should consider more frequent pickups. What every business needs is a chain of custody from document birth until destruction. [news report]

Shredding in Palm Springs

2009-10-08T07:21:00.000-07:00

Skilled Services moved from their Palm Springs offices but apparently was too busy to worry about their clients. They left boxes of private information in the dumpster. Included in the documents were copies of licenses and social security numbers. Everything an identity thief needs in one place.

The documents were discovered by local businesses and reported to the police and the news.

Moving is much more expensive when you add in the cost of a lawyer to defend your company for violating FACTA.

Perils of Not Having a Document Shredding Program

2009-10-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

Most organizations fail to shred everything that the law and good practice require because they don't have a document shredding program. The standard practice for many is to leave the shredding to the discretion of a low level employee. The result is much of what needs to be shredded is sent out with the trash. If you have been reading this blog for any amount of time then you know that boxes of files are magnets for everyone walking by.

The latest example is Flagler County. Instead of shredding they left boxes of sensitive information in the trash. When exposed by the local news they said it was only one box. However, the reporter found more sensitive information after they said the problem was solved.

The incremental cost to shred a box with a shredding service is only a couple of bucks. Why would any organization risk their customers, suppliers and reputation for so small a price?

Personal Documents in Homebuilders Dumpster

2009-10-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

Lynn Narcisse of Arlington likes to survey his neighborhood every evening. He is glad he did this week when he found piles of folders of personal information in the dumpster behind the sales office for K. Hovnanian Homes. The folders had the buyers personal information from another development by the same builder.

Contrary to the person contacted by the reporter from WFAA, it is a violation of FACTA do dump private information like described into the trash.

You Want the Shredded Paper Back

2009-10-02T12:50:00.001-07:00

Every so often we get asked if they can have the paper back after we have shredded it. There are several reasons why we don't do this.

The primary one is security. We send all of our shredded to a paper mill. At the mill it is turned back into paper pulp and the ink is removed. Think of it as a giant blender with paper and water. It comes out white and is made into new paper. I can't imagine anything more secure. (I would consider burning to be equal but without the environmental benefits.)

The more fun reason is this is what it would look like emptying the truck at their location:

Mobile Shredding Truck Unloading

Charleston Man Charged for Not Shredding

2009-09-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

In a follow up to an earlier story; the Mount Pleasant police have charged Anthony Loius Smalls with illegal dumping. Smalls was hired by American Media Services LLC to dispose of personal information. However, he just left the boxes of personal information in a dumpster behind the Sea Island Shopping Center.

He must have know what he was doing was illegal because he didn't leave the information in his own dumpster. Along with illegal dumping he has violated FACTA and could face additional charges. American Media Services LLC has also violated FACTA by not doing due diligence into who they hired for the job.

It is always better to get a reputable South Carolina shredding service than trust a guy and a pickup.

Shredding Needed in Charleston

2009-09-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

The South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs has launched an investigation into why hundreds of private financial data was found in a dumpster behind a Mount Pleasant business complex. The data is from businesses around the country.

It is generally an easy task to find out who put the information in the dumpster. Once discovered they guilty party faces penalties for the Department of Consumer Affairs or lawsuits from the parties who had their information exposed.

The cost of shredding is slow low why risk the fines and the unpleasant interview on the evening news.