Did you know that individuals who are well-informed of the risks and factors associated with identity theft are less vulnerable to becoming a victim of the crime?
As your local shredding company, we care about your protection. Shred Instead is dedicated to helping the community; introducing your business or home to the proactive approach of secure document destruction.
Identity theft is a serious issue all around the world. Knowing the facts is the first step in ensuring your personal information remains in safe hands.
- Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in America
- Over 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year
- Types of identity theft include:
- Financial ID theft
- Insurance ID theft
- Child ID theft
- Medical ID theft
- Criminal ID theft
- Social Security ID theft
- Driver’s License ID theft
- Business or Commercial ID theft
- The most common ways identities are stolen are:
- Throwing away documents with personal information on them (bank statements, old bills, receipts, etc.)
- Providing personal information on an unsecure Internet platform
- Having your wallet or mail stolen
- Revealing personal information over the telephone to thieves posing as financial institutions, telephone companies, or other sources
- An average of 56.6 billion dollars is lost by businesses each year due to identity theft.
- 66% of identity theft victims have new accounts that they don’t know about, opened in their names.
- Only 15% of people find out they’ve been victimized by being proactive. The other 75% find out by being denied credit, receiving phone calls from a debt collections agency, etc.
- On average, it takes a victim 330 hours to recover from ID theft. The hours range from 3-5,840, depending on the seriousness of the crime. It can take several weeks or even years to get your finances and credit back to “pre-theft” order.
- It only takes 2 minutes to receive a quote from Shred Instead about our secure document destruction services.