Avoid Holiday Identity Theft with AccuShred

Shopping for the holidays is always fun and exciting! However, with the looming danger of identity theft, holiday shoppers must be careful!!! Here are some tips for the holiday season:

Ladies, Don’t Bring Your Purses: Purse theft is the leading cause of identity theft! Don’t take your purse to the mall! And especially don’t leave it unattended while trying something on or at your feet while you’re eating lunch. Just take a small wallet that easily fits into a zippered pocket in your coat and only take your driver’s license and 1 or 2 credit cards. If you absolutely need to carry a purse, have a cross body purse that zips and hangs in front of you.

Do Not Leave or Throw Anything Away: When shopping, don’t throw your receipts into public trash containers or leave them at any register. Fraudsters could easily pick through the garbage or swipe a receipt from a counter without anyone noticing.

Watch Your Statements: Most forms of holiday identity theft can be caught simply by monitoring your checking, debit, and credit card accounts frequently. Check the amounts on your statements because they could differ from your records. For instance, you may have charged something for $53.98 but thieves could possibly change that amount to $89.35 or $153.98. Also, make sure to check for transactions you didn’t make and report any fraudulent transactions as soon as they occur.

Shred, Shred, Shred: Make sure to shred any documents that have personal information such as credit card numbers, bank statements, charge receipts, and credit card applications, before disposing of them. Dumpster diving is becoming an increasing element in a lot of identity theft. A smart and easy way to make sure your sensitive information on documents are destructed carefully is by taking your documents to AccuShred.

Don’t Throw Away Old Electronics: Old Electronics, such as: computers, tablets, smartphones, printers, and many more electronics, have your sensitive information stored on them. Do not carelessly toss these old electronics in your garbage on the side of the road waiting to be picked up! Fraudsters easily can drive by and pick up your electronics, hack into them, and take all your private information! Also, by tossing out your old electronics you are not responsibly recycling. Make sure to wipe the hard drives of old computers and laptops of all the data but then to also destroy the hard drives. By taking your electronics to AccuShred, not only are you not producing electronic waste (e-waste) you are also taking the necessary precautions and having your electronics torn down and their hard drives shredded in less than 5 minutes!

-From your Friends at AccuShred. We want to wish you a safe and secure holiday season!