Free For Frying Out Loud by Fay Jacobs Page A

happen?
    We heard about shredders for years, with our national security agencies using them to protect covert operations and corporate accounting firms using them to hide major fraud. Shredders let them get away with murder, both literally and figuratively.
    But a shredder at home? What for?
    Then came the credit police, along with cable newscasters eager to fill up that 24-hour news cycle, warning of terrifying identity theft tales. They convinced us that bypassing the shredder with a single envelope with our names, never mind anactual invoice sporting an account number, means you might as well be selling your identity on eBay.
    So I got into shredding. My latest shredder (that I’ve owned the same number of shredders in my lifetime as I have owned coffee pots is scary) is a Professional, Heavy Duty, Cross Cut Paper Shredder with auto reverse, steel gear construction and the ability to destroy CDs and Credit Cards. I so wish I had destroyed the credit cards before I abused them.
    As for the destruction of CDs, I have to admit great pleasure in trying out the machine with old Barry Manilow albums. I shred the songs the whole world sings.
    But the truth is, it’s tricky business this shredding. Last week I accidentally sent a CD through the paper slot and the shredder ground to a halt like a politician caught with a call girl. I spent the better part of that afternoon extracting CD shards from the shredder with a tweezers.
    I’d like to calculate how many hours a week I spend shredding bank statements, credit reports, charge receipts, insurance forms and old checks. And we can’t forget about all the pre-approved credit card applications with their tempting pre-approved checks.
    Those damn things just beg to be stolen so some low life can charge you for a trip to Vegas. I know that what happens in Vegas stays there, but I don’t want it to be my credit rating. I’m telling you, worrying about this stuff can turn you into a paranoid nut job wanting to cancel all your credit cards, close your savings accounts and start hiding your money in tomato cans in the back yard.
    Remember the promise of a paperless society? This isn’t it, unless we’ve traded an eight-and-a-half by eleven society for confetti world. And speaking of tiny speckles of paper, yesterday, I failed to put the plastic storage bucket back into the shredder properly and came home to discover two sheepish Schnauzers and a den floor that looked like a parade route after the Red Sox won the pennant.
    So now I’m looking at my upended, constipated shredder,wondering if I have to purchase yet another anti-identity theft device. By the way, my 1997 coffee pot is still brewing just fine.
    I go online and read the ads for shredders. I can choose from The Shredmaster, Powershred Plus, Destroyit Heavy-Duty, Intimus (what does it shred, Hustler and condoms?), and my personal favorite, Intellishred. If it were truly intelligent it would have figured out a different way to deter dumpster divers by now. They also offer machines with child locks, which, I assume, double as Schnauzer locks.
    I have learned that the average heavy-duty shredder feeds 26 - 30 sheets at a time at 30 feet per minute. I imagine that will be useful to clean up after the Bush Administration. And I loved the ad for a continuous shredding heavy duty model for nonstop shredding 24-hours a day. What kind of business needs round the clock shredding now that Enron is gone?
    But here’s the really frightening truth about protecting your identity and the sanctity of garbage: there has now been a documented rash of scams taking money from frightened consumers for Identity Fraud Protection.
    It’s probable that some of the shady characters who dove in dumpsters to steal identities in the first place may now be going door-to-door selling phony protection against such despicable acts. Unscrupulous companies are all over cyberspace selling identity theft protection for a