By Staff
June 4th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Cal Millar, a Halton Crime Stoppers Board member said there “was a steady stream throughout the day” and added that it “Looks like we have more than doubled the number of people from last year, just looking at the total of donations.”
The flow of traffic was steady through the day – volunteers were on hand to help people with large cartons of documents.
Miller was reporting to his fellow Crime stoppers Board members on their annual shredding event they did on Saturday with FileBank, an accredited document shredding company.
In the past Crime Stoppers had difficulty letting people know about the event. Traditional media didn’t’ seem to attract the people Crime Stoppers believed were out there wanting to use such a service.
FileBanks “The Beast” chewed up more than five tons of sensitive documents last Saturday
Identity theft has become a crime that is out of control with the banks reporting loses in the billions of dollars. Many of those identity thefts came about when thieves tricked people into giving them information though a web site or they went through personal garbage looking for a bank statement – any document with personal information that allowed the thieves to create a profile of a person and then go after their money.
Cal Millar on the left with Detective Constable Jodi Richmond on the right counting out the cash donations from people who had their sensitive financial documents shredded – more than $4000 was raised for Crime Stoppers
The banks found they were close to helpless in preventing these crimes but were the organization that had to bear the cost when a crime was discovered.
The Burlington Gazette worked with the banks, the Regional Police, Crime Stoppers and their partner FileBank to put together a program that told people about the shredding event.
Using the Gazette website combined with what were called “banknote coupons” that were created for each of the participating banks, Crime Stoppers succeeding in convincing the banks to serve as the front line in this effort to direct people to the shredding event.
Millar reports that “we more than doubled attendance. It was the best attended shred so far. We took in more than $4,000 which was the most financially rewarding community shred we have had. And almost 10,000 pounds of shredded paper (almost five tons) was largest amount we have destroyed.
“Banknote coupons” the size of a $5 bill were handed out to the customers at the banks who chose to participate in the program. The notes were customized for each bank and told people of the shredding event – which resulted in the highest turnout ever.
Pulling together six organizations: Regional Police, Crime Stoppers, FileBank and three of the charted banks took some doing – but five tons of sensitive financial documents were shredded and some crimes prevented.
