Residents' records get ripped at citywide shredding event

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Sunday, March 28, 2010 – CAN (EN)

EdmontonJournal.com

By Andrea Sands

EDMONTON — City residents who don't want to risk identity theft when they discard personal documents lined up to shred their papers in bulk Saturday.

People hauled bags, boxes and bins of bank statements, credit card bills, receipts, utility bills and other personal papers to two Alberta Motor Association (AMA) offices in Edmonton Saturday, where rumbling trucks with industrial-sized hydraulic shredders chewed through the reams of paper.

In the AMA South Centre parking lot, at 10310 G.A. MacDonald Ave., people delivered their documents to three mobile paper shredding and recycling trucks.

The Alberta Motor Association -- working with the Edmonton Police Service, the RCMP and Shred-it -- offered the free shredding service to fight identity theft as part of fraud-prevention month in March.

The free shredding event started in 2007, said Karen Graham, member services manager for the AMA, which has a crime-prevention mandate.

On Saturday, the shredding trucks operated from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the AMA's south-side office as well as at AMA Manning Centre, at 5040 Manning Drive.

The service was not available for businesses, but only private citizens disposing of documents.

"It became very popular and this year, throughout Alberta, there will be 18 events," Graham said.

"What some people are telling us is they have small shredders at home, but they have a lot of information they've been keeping and it takes a long time to shred it that way."

The Shred-it trucks can destroy a banker box of documents every 30 seconds. The trucks can also destroy other items that contain personal information, such as hard drives and CDs.

Andrew Struthers, 39, lugged two boxes and a bag of 15-year-old tax documents and bank statements to be destroyed.

Struthers was glad to be rid of the papers. His family has moved three times in the past few years, and he has hauled the boxes marked "confidential shredding" to each new house.

Struthers said protecting his family's personal information suddenly became a higher priority after he had his bank-card information skimmed a week ago. The bank immediately froze his card, but not before someone stole $320 from his account.

Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in Canada, organizers said.

RCMP Const. Grant Feschuk said people need to realize that personal information is very valuable to criminals.

"One of the best ways to safeguard your personal information is actually to shred it -- receipts, utility bills, credit card bills," Feschuk said.

"When you're done with your bill, shred it, because there's a lot of good personal information on there -- your name, your account number, where you shop -- for a criminal to create an account using your name."

According to information collected by Canada's anti-fraud centre, known as Phonebusters, 11,109 people across Canada reported being the victims of identity theft or mass-marketing frauds in 2009.

Officially, their losses total nearly $11 million.

"The number is likely greater than that because people are often embarrassed about being victimized and don't report it," said Feschuk.

"Take the initiative. Shred those documents you don't need and safeguard that personal information from prying eyes."

Moira Laurie, 57, has always been careful with her personal papers. She makes sure to rip names and other personal information off any envelopes or papers that go into her recycling bag. The rest of her personal papers go into a bag for shredding.

"Then I think, what the heck am I going to do with all this stuff?"

Laurie was packing to move to B.C. when she heard Saturday morning that the AMA was holding the shredding event that same day.

She immediately brought a big blue bag of documents to one of the Shred-it trucks for safe disposal.

"We're moving, so you can just imagine all the personal information," said Laurie.

The AMA intends to hold another free shredding event in May.