Protecting Your Trash

Your trash is an invitation for an identity thief to steal your identity.  Not everyone realizes just how severely your trash can be used against you.  Mostly because so many of us mindlessly throw away documents with personal information that could be harmful in the wrong hands.  You don’t always consider how important protecting your trash really is, until it’s too late.

So first you should realize that you need to be careful with any document that has your full name, address, phone number, and especially bank/credit card account numbers or information.  Any bills, relating to anything, are also areas of concern.  You should never just throw these into your trash, as in the hands of an identity thief, there’s no limit to the ways they can use the info against you.

Which is exactly why a document shredder is a product every home should invest in.  Any of the aforementioned documents need to be shredded before you throw them away.  That way you can protect the information, and ensure nobody uses those documents against you to steal your identity.  Remember that after you shred the documents, you should still separate the paper shreds into more than one trash bag.  That way you add an extra layer of security to anyone that could try and recreate the documents.

Also remember to protect your trash bins.  Don’t leave them out in the open where any person walking by could access your trash.  Leave them either locked up in your garage, or in your yard.  Anywhere that you can make sure somebody won’t have easy access to.

Also, on trash day, make sure you wait until close to pick up time before you put your trash bins out.  Leaving trash unwatched at the end of your driveway for a long time, is just asking for trouble.  Limiting how long your trash is out in the open limits how long an identity thief would have to go through it.