One in every 16 adults in the United States will have their identity stolen. When this happens, your records, your accounts, and your credit are at serious risk. Identity thieves can open credit accounts in your name. They can steal money from your accounts, and they can pose as you during financial transactions.

Incidents of identity theft are growing each year. They are hard to prove and even harder to find the thief. Victims of identity theft are left defending themselves and trying to protect and fix their own credit as they have to prove they were not the ones making the purchases.

Although most people fear online identity theft, over ninety percent of stolen identities are stolen through access to information on printed paper; records, bills, and more. Paper shredding is the number one way to protect yourself from identity theft.

Most companies have on site document shredding, so that sensitive papers are continually
shredded and not stored anywhere in the office where someone could gain access to it. This protects the employees, customers, and anyone else connected to the company. It also protects the company from possible liability if personal information was to be stolen from the office.

Paper shredding destroys the information, so it is no longer readable and can no longer be used to harm anyone. Shredding services allow anyone to get documents shredded; they do not have to go buy or own a shredder to be protected.

As the need for paper shredding has grown, one time purge shredding services are being provided. Many small towns will bring in a paper shredding company to set up for an afternoon and shred whatever papers are brought out by residents of that town. This is often coordinated with pride days or other community events where large amounts of people will attend.

There are also shredding services that have office hours, which allow individuals to bring in their paper to be shredded when it is convenient for them. Companies can set contracts with shredding companies. Typically this means they are provided with a special locked garbage bin to put paper in that needs to be shredded and then the bin is emptied by the shredding company at regular intervals.