How hoarding documents puts you at risk for identity theft

SALT LAKE CITY — Every day, sophisticated crooks use sophisticated technology to pull off sophisticated schemes to rip us off. While it’s certainly wise to be on your guard against such modern sophistication you must not overlook the decidedly less sophisticated methods of identity theft.

Someone who knows what they’re doing can do a whole lot of damage with the scraps of paper you’ve stashed in filing cabinets, drawers and other various hiding places around your house.

Utah’s Consumer Protection Division director Katie Hass pointed out that to me as we rifled through my own clutter of documents.

“Your name, your address, your date of birth, your Social Security number,” Hass said as she listed information found in my papers. “Info about your children, family members, et cetera.”

I brought Haas my family’s 2016 “keepers-folder.” Now more than seven years old, it’s ready to be tossed into the recycle bin.

“Uh, no!” she warned. “Don’t just throw them in the recycle bin – bad idea.”

The folder is full of paid invoices and other receipts. A utility bill or two. A contract for a home alarm system and that kind of miscellaneous stuff. In it, we found nothing like a tax return or any such document that a bad guy could need to steal my identity.

Well, actually — that’s not true.

“They have your address,” Hass pointed out. “They know where you work.”

Yeah, the information in the folder — as miscellaneous as it is — can still be more than enough for a thief to use to bypass security controls.

“It’s not that one document is going to have everything about you,” Hass explained. “It’s about them building a case that they are you.”

The con can also work in the reverse direction. Using the information I’ve kept in this folder, someone could call me up and perhaps successfully persuade me that they are a legitimate representative from my bank, my mortgage lender or with the city. Once they do that, they’ll put the squeeze on me as they try to get me to divulge personal information. They might claim I’ve missed a payment or there’s a problem they’ll help me fix — something like that. It’s a successful strategy that scammers use all the time.

“Well guess what? If they have a bill form your mortgage company, they can impersonate your mortgage company much better,” said Hass.

The solution? Firing up the shredder to dispose of the paperwork you’re needlessly hoarding.

That can be a long, arduous task shredding papers one-by-one. So, the Consumer Protection Division and the University of Utah’s Sustainability Office have teamed up to host Declutter Day this Friday. This is your opportunity to bring in documents that have piled up in your home. They’re also helping Utahns destroy old hard drives filled with personal information. And bonus, they’re offering safe disposal for expired medications and old electronics.

Declutter Day is Friday, April 19 from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Guardsman Way parking lot on the University of Utah campus. You’ll find more details about what will be accepted and what won’t on the Consumer Protection division’s website.