By: Ralph Mark Maupin and Sherman Rogers
Large cities are attractive to dumpster divers, looking for hidden treasure in dumpsters and trash bins. While dumpster diving is not a crime, and may not be seen a any kind of threat, it does create some concern. Dumpster diving can be dangerous, divers can be injured and property owners or dumpster rental companies can be held liable. Another great concern is identity theft.
While most people think the idea of going through peoples’ garbage is disgusting, to an identity thief the reward is worth doing the dirty work for. The average victim is worth over $30,000.
The scary part is dumpster diving is not a crime if the trash is left in a public place. If it is out on the curb, anyone can pick it up and carry it away. Public dumpsters like those by apartment buildings are not off limits to the dumpster diver. Dumpster diving is only a crime when someone goes through trash on private property, like the trash can sitting out behind the garage.
So, if your trash is out by the curb, the trash picker simply takes it away to go through it and find the valuable information needed to create new accounts, take from existing accounts and take over other personal aspects of your life. This can be done rather quickly and the damage is done before you suspect a thing.
The sad part is it can take over two years to straighten out the mess. It’s so much easier to protect yourself from the start. The easiest way to protect your identity from the trash picker is to shred everything that contains personal information about you and your family. Use a quality shredder that cross-cuts your documents, turning them to confetti, making it impossible for the identity thief to put the pieces of your life together just to destroy it.
Identity theft by the dumpster diver is easy to prevent by taking the time to properly dispose of paid bills, credit card pre-approval letters, mortgage refinance offers and anything that contains personal information, account numbers or social security numbers. Shred everything before putting it out to the curb.
This article was written by Ralph Mark Maupin, of Right Now Marketing and Sherman Rogers of All-waste, LLC, a dumpster rental company who provides dumpster delivery service and same-day dumpster pick-up service to residential, commercial, retail and industrial customers. Sherman has the size, shape and competitive priced dumpster for any size job. Other services include container service, trash pick-up, hauling rubble, waste removal, delivery of landscaping supplies including mulch, sod, top-soil, crush aggregate and more. Visit http://thegarbageman.com/ for more information about services offered.
Contact:
ALL WASTE, LLC
4751 22 Mile Road
Shelby Township, MI 48317-1515
Phone: 877-524-1002
Web site: http://thegarbageman.com/
Email: sherman@all-waste.com
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