By Staff
May 30th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Crime Stoppers of Halton in partnership with FileBank Canada is hosting a shred event in Burlington to help combat Identity Theft and other fraud.
The event will be held Saturday, June 3, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the parking lot on the east side of Brant Street at Ghent Avenue, three blocks south of Fairview Street.
Crime Stoppers has also partnered with a number of the chartered banks in Burlington to promote the event at the bank branch level by handing out small banknote sized coupons alerting people to how serious a problem Identity Theft is and how people can use the Crime stoppers service to protect themselves.
For a donation to Halton’s Crime Stoppers programs, residents and business owners can feed FileBank’s “Beast” – a state-of-the-art mobile shredding vehicle – with their personal and sensitive documents to ensure they are not used by scam artists for various fraud schemes.
One of the fastest growing frauds today is Identity Theft with losses running into the billions of dollars. Halton Crime Stoppers is committed to helping people to protect themselves from this crime with several conveniently located community shred campaigns across the region throughout the year.
Detective Constable Jodi Richmond, police coordinator of Halton Crime Stoppers, said it’s important for people to protect themselves from becoming victims by ensuring any documents with personal information are destroyed properly.
“Items such as cancelled cheques, financial records, old letterhead, invoices, copies of job applications or anything containing personal information can easily be used by criminals to obtain credit cards; steal money from bank accounts; procure passports or other identification and even get a mortgage on your home without you even knowing,” she said. “Destroying confidential and business documents is the best way to protect you from becoming a victim of fraud.”
Detective Constable Richmond also pointed out that FileBank’s process is eco-friendly since all sensitive documents pulverized through the mobile shredding equipment is recycled into new paper products.
In addition, those bringing old financial records and other documents to the shredding site in Burlington will receive a 500-sheet package of recycled paper courtesy of Domtar, one of Canada’s leading paper producers.
“It’s a win-win situation for everyone,” Richmond said.
Halton Crime Stoppers also wishes to thank local branches of the Royal Bank, Scotia Bank and TD Bank for helping promote the shred event to their customers and raise awareness of Identity Theft.
