Riverbank, headquartered in North Andover, is holding a series of shred days to help people fight identity theft.
The company’s PR firm, Warner Communications of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass., sent out a press release that’s worthy of mention itself: In a well-sealed business envelope containing the press release, media contact Erin Vadala had also placed shredded paper.
It was a little startling, not knowing what the loose material was inside the envelope, but I took the plunge and found the confetti. It was kind of fun, so kudos to Warner for that little gimmick.
PR aside, identity theft is a growing problem, having skyrocketed by 22 percent over the last year, with some 10 million victims. The stakes are high: Once a criminal gets ahold of your personal information, they can, in effect, become you — and steal from you. With certain, key numbers, like your Social Security number, phone number and address, along with your name and any other personal data they can grab, ID thieves can get credit cards, open bank accounts, buy a house, a car — whatever they want — until they get caught. In other cases, they can impersonate you and commit even more crimes.
Enter Riverbank. For the third year in a row, it is offering industrial-strength shredding at three of its locations. Last Saturday was in Derry, N.H., this Saturday is at the bank’s Methuen branch at 20 Jackson St., and next Saturday the shredding truck will be parked at the River Bank HQ at 30 Massachusetts Ave. The shredding will take place from 9 a.m. to noon.
Experts say there are two ways to avoid ID theft: Shred sensitive documents, and get off mailing lists. By removing yourself from mailing lists, you’ll get less junk mail that just so happens to have lots of personal information on it. By shredding sensitive documents, you ensure that criminals can’t get personal information about you — at least from your mail. Other ID theft scams have run through the Internet, something that’s a little harder to fight. For that, experts advise periodically checking your credit report to ensure that nobody has grabbed your ID from some online database and used it to buy stuff.
