Do you shred your gas/electric bills?

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I only shred stuff like credit card offers and other “personally identifying” mail. Stuff like charities asking for money, simple junk mail, and such are not.

However, this is less and less of an issue as we do more and more online now.

The group that makes me the maddest is the NEA. My wife get’s at least one credit card app AND loan app a week from them. I thought it was an orginization to help teachers, not traffic in credit cards and financial products???
 
I’m really lazy about clearing out old stuff and my filing system was big plastic Rubbermaid storage boxes for YEARS. I didn’t know precisely where things were but I knew they were in there somewhere and I could stash them in a closet. Before I moved, I finally got around to cleaning out, shredding and actually organizing in filing cabinets; I’d had stuff going back to the late 80’s…
 
PrayHarder said:
I don’t know the statistics, but I believe a good proportion of identity theft and fraud is a result of “dumpster diving” and not from online hacking. The amount of time, money, and energy you spend shredding documents will be nothing compared to rebuilding your credit or restoring your identity.
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You’ve got to be kidding. An online hacker can access hundreds of accounts in one day. When was the last time you saw anyone dumpster diving for ID theft? Maybe 20 years ago, but now they do it from the comfort of their homes. It’s all out there online. Shredding every piece of paper just gives you a false sense of relief. The times they are a changing.
 
If you toss it, shred it, but you can keep it if you want proof of residence for a specific time period. It is unlikely that if someone breaks into your home, they’ll go for the electric bills. They’re going to go for stuff they can take to a pawn shop.

As for paper-searching of recycling bins being tedious, realize that electronic ID theft requires skill, and many people are in the theft business because they aren’t really long in the marketable skills department. Although mail theft is a serious crime, dumpster diving isn’t as difficult as breaking and entering, and in some places it is not even a crime at all. While someone has to be somewhat adept at identity theft to get away with it, someone doesn’t have to be good at it to cause their intended victim a lot of headaches. My purse was stolen once, I reported it within half an hour and was only out $50, but I can’t tell you what a headache it was to get the records all cleared up.
 
I work for a company helping those with identify theft. Believe me, dumpster diving is less that 1% of the identity theft. Most is by hackers who can access your records in an instant. Having your purse stolen is a poor man’s way. The bigger fish are caught by hackers. Shred away, and feel safe. The pros are not dumpster diving.
 
paulnick9092 said:
You’ve got to be kidding. An online hacker can access hundreds of accounts in one day. When was the last time you saw anyone dumpster diving for ID theft? Maybe 20 years ago, but now they do it from the comfort of their homes. It’s all out there online. Shredding every piece of paper just gives you a false sense of relief. The times they are a changing.
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Well, this thread was started 3 years ago. Maybe it was more common back then. 😛
 
Not really, online identify theft has been going on strong for over 12 years.
 
Shred it, and if you are not scared of what you are sharing online then you should. It is becoming more common for people to use personal information (text, photos, videos…) of people found on the internet for blackmail, extortion, and other sinful acts.
 
I guess I replied to this some time in the past but:
  1. I save utility and other bills. I prefer not to shred for several years. (Five to seven might be good.) Also, I write the date and check number used on my copy. *** I don’t pay anything online***. I don’t care what I can find in their records or computer.) Friends have told me once it’s paid, they don’t save for long = I disagree.
As for identity, very important but perhaps, again only in the case of the past one to five years, if you have to show proof of residence, etc. Paperwork has become overwhelming but I prefer hard copies to whatever might be produced LATER from computer records. Some utility companies don’t even come to read meters any longer and expect you to do so. Those bills I seriously save.
Cancelled checks (or copies) depend on the amount of time or how important the payment was.

Further, since this post was started, I ESPECIALLY don’t like those square bar codes now appearing on everything - from envelopes in our mail, perhaps bills, and such innocent things as weekly grocery ads. Why?
 
I must have replied to this thread at some point, too, because I got a thread notification in my email…

I keep most things a year and then shred.

But speaking of security risks:

What baffles me are the numbers of people who do their banking and account work online. All it takes is one little “critter” in your system, something new that your security program doesn’t recognize yet, and it can follow what you do right into your accounts. And if Bank of America can get hacked, so can every other online account system. I don’t store personal information on my computer or do account maintenance or bill payment. Remember, every keystroke is in the history of your computer.

Which brings me to the subject of networks. Do you do anything of a personal nature on your computer at work? Pay accounts at lunch time, access your personal email account? Let me tell you what happened to me several years ago. I checked my email at work daily at a healthcare company I worked for. I left that company because they were doing some illegal stuff and afterwards I was corresponding by email on my home computer with a healthcare regulatory agency. One day I opened my email and every one of the emails with the regulatory agency had been removed. Nothing else was disturbed. The only way that could have happened would have been because I had used my personal email at work and my password was in the network. I contacted Yahoo, who told me I’d have to talk to their legal department, who never responded. So now I may surf the internet at lunch time but I never open my personal email at work.
 
ack said:
I’m “paranoid” about this because this has been a big problem in our neighborhood recently. Residents have spotted a woman who loiters on the sidewalk and steals the mail when nobody seems to be looking. At least one local resident was a victim of identity theft afterward.

I would invest in a locked mailbox (or a mailslot built into the house) before I would waste money on a shredder. Stealing the mail is so easy and yields better results than digging through someone’s garbage.
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You need to report this to the Post Office immediately. They take mail theft VERY seriously and will work with the local authorities to get this woman in custody. They have their own investigators too.

… Oh I see that this thread is 3 years old…But anyone who suspects that someone is stealing mail needs to call the USPS right away. There was some theft in my neighborhood and the thief got arrested. It’s a federal crime, not small potatoes.
 
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