Huh? They want me to buy what? A Shredder? What the heck is a shredder? And what’s a shredder going to do towards keeping us from being victimized by crime?
Let me tell you something right here and now. There are thousands of people across the United States that are going to bed for the night with an open invitation to burglars and crooks who will prowl your neighborhoods under the cover of darkness.
Your vehicle is hopefully locked and secure, but what’s scary is the thought of hundred’s of people reading this who are now saying, “Gee I don’t know if it’s locked or not…”
Your garage door is hopefully locked as well as your side garage door, but how many of you will go out right now and find that you left it open? Depending on where you live and what time of night it is, you could very well find someone INSIDE your garage RIGHT NOW!
Crooks cruise at night, and it takes them only seconds to enter a dark garage and leave with expensive tools, bicycles, garage stereo’s, and if you left your car unlocked inside the garage, expect to find your stereo or cell phone gone one of these mornings.
These thefts are covered in depth throughout our book CopTalk, but hey! You don’t need to buy the book to go do something right now. PLEASE GO make sure your car is locked whether it’s parked on the street or in the garage. And as long as you’re going out there, make sure your garage door is closed and the side door is locked.
Get in the Habit of doing this EVERY night and I’m thinking there’s gonna be a whole lot of cops wondering why they had so much time to “PATROL” instead of spending most the shift writing reports for property crimes that “COULD have been PREVENTED from the night before!”
We’ll address these issues in upcoming Tip of the Week stories, but there’s one culprit that you never think of that can cause you great inconvenience and embarrassment. This culprit gives away your Identity and in return, you get to spend hours and hours trying to straighten your credit report and civil court proceedings out. This culprit works at night as well as the crooks that use his service for help in ripping you off.
The culprit is your trash can or garbage dumpster. And what this culprit gives away is this:
Your driver’s license information.
Your vehicle registration information.
Your credit card statements.
Your credit card applications.
Your bank records.
Your old checks.
Your phone bills.
Your gas card statements.
All this adds up to the “Theft of Your Identity”
I served an arrest warrant once, on a young woman who lived alone in my area. The warrant was for stealing not one, but 2 rental cars. But wait, she said she’s never rented a car in her short young life. Well then who rented a Z-28 and a T-bird and “forgot to return them?
She must have rented them. She had provided her social security number, telephone numbers, and a valid Visa card. She had even presented a valid driver’s license. She signed the rental agreement and, but wait, that’s not her signature. Hey, this is someone else’s writing.
To make a long story short it all came back to garbage and mail theft. Someone had been stealing mail and trash in my area for awhile. This poor young woman who lived alone BECAME A VICTIM because someone stole important looking documents out of her trash and took equally important looking envelopes from the mailbox.
Congratulations Mr. Lambert! You are pre-qualified to enhance the credit limit of your current Visa account for an amount up to $15,000.00. Simply return the stamped addressed envelope and refer to your account number 1679-0127-9237. All this for being a preferred customer.
Crook steals my mail and by a stroke of good luck, scores something with my birth date on it that I threw in the trash. Crook now has my address, name, birth date, telephone number, and a pre-approved credit card number.
Crook goes to the department of motor vehicles (as James Lambert) and explains how they lost their driver’s license and need a new one issued. Crook answers a few personal question, steps in front of the camera, and wham. Walks out as James Lambert! Now there are two of us! Only I’ll never know because the crook tells D.M.V. that he’s moved and that his new address is PO BOX yada yada yada…
D.M.V. clerk doesn’t get suspicious and grants the “change of address.” Clerk doesn’t notice that the signatures are different as well. I’m screwed. Crook rents a car under my driver’s license number, using my Visa number, and all paperwork for the transaction goes to a bogus PO BOX at one of these Mailbox Express outlets.
Crook scores a few more credit cards under my name from these introductory offers with sky soaring interest rates, and goes on a spending spree buying clothes, cell phones, pagers, big screen TV’s, and hey, let’s rent a car while we’re at it!
A few months go buy while all these companies who gave the “fake me” credit, try to track down the crook. Sorry, long gone. So now I’m “the crook.”
The companies report the incidents to the police who start looking at things such as “previous addresses” etc.
They track me down, and WHAM! I’m in a whole lotta trouble for something I didn’t do. Something I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW HAD BEEN DONE! But guess what folks. The burden of proof is on me to show my innocence. Many of these companies don’t care what happened, or whether I knew or not. They want their MONEY that James Lambert supposedly charged up. And often, victims of this crime have negative credit ratings for months to follow until the entire mess is straightened out.
Hey wait, This isn’t my Chevron bill. I don’t have one! I use Shell.
Wait, This isn’t my Cellular One phone bill, I use AT&T!
And I didn’t write this check. Yes that’s my account number but that account has been closed for 2 months! (That’s the problem with throwing away your books of old checks!)
Unfair? YES
Common? YES
PREVENTABLE? YES YES YES!
We go into much more detail in our book, but there’s 2 easy ways to prevent the theft of your identity. Remember, every action has a reaction. Take away the opportunity, you’ll take away the crime!
Mail:
You can’t prevent someone from stealing your mail. Crook drives up. Opens the door. Grabs the mail and splits. Most the time unseen by you, or your neighbors. Keeps the good stuff, learns who you are, and trashes the junk mail.
Remedy? Get a PO BOX or get a locking mailbox like they have at apartment complexes. Is it a hassle? Sure is but nowhere near the hassle of straightening out the mess described above!
Trash:
This one is so simple. BUY A SHREDDER! The picture at the top of this page is of an investment I made a year ago that has given me total peace of mind regarding trash thefts.
They are so cheap these days. You can get them anywhere. Wallmart, Target, K-Mart, Stationary stores, Wholesale outlets, Home Improvement stores. They are cheap to expensive depending on what you buy.
I bought one for $29.00 but it kept jamming. (I have a bad habit of exceeding the recommended manufacturer limitations of only 2 pages at a time!)
I ended up with the one pictured at the head of this topic. It was $89.00 but it came with the trash basket and shredder all in one and it shreds up to 8 pages at a time.
All my mail goes in to 2 places.
One, on my desk to be mailed out, and Two, IN THE SHREDDER! Even my old checks. Just so you know, the people who steal your books of old checks sell them on street corners for $10.00 a box. Usually right around the corner from the guy who sells fake I.D’s.
If you don’t want to buy a shredder, at least tear your old bills and important papers into really small pieces before you put them in the trash. After doing that a couple times, I’m thinking you’ll do what I did and buy a shredder.
Hey! This isn’t a push for shredder manufacturers. We’re not endorsing any particular brands. What we’re endorsing is you protecting yourself against having the cops knock on your door one day, and arresting you for warrant issued over the theft of a rental car. THAT YOU NEVER RENTED!
I put hours and hours into trying to sort out the mess where that young woman was falsely accused. Hours that I could have spent trying to find suspicious looking vehicles cruising through the neighborhood with occupants looking to STEAL YOUR IDENTITY!
One last thing;
Shredders are not a toy. They can be a dangerous piece of equipment. Keep young children away from them at all times, and ALWAYS follow the manufacturers operating and safety instructions.
To the cadet officer at my previous department who has a tie mounted on a plaque that’s 7 inches shorter than it used to be, and the end is in “shreds”, I’d like to say,,,
“Nice Tie!” JL
