FOR MANY PEOPLE, spring cleaning has begun and they are filling up trash cans with their unwanted treasures and trash.
Identity thieves love this time of year because they can go through people’s trash looking for personal information they can use to open credit cards or establish lines of credit.
With more people using credit cards and being barraged with financial information, it is getting harder for people to protect their identities and easier for criminals to get them. It should come as no surprise that identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the country.
Even though Emporia is a safe community, it’s important to realize that identity theft can happen here and we need to take the necessary precautions against it.
One of the best ways to prevent identity theft is to shred all unnecessary papers that contain personal information. This Saturday, ESB Financial is offering the community a unique opportunity.
ESB is bringing to town a Shred-It mobile shredding truck and is inviting people to bring all their personal information and have it destroyed for free.
If you have boxes of financial records, old checkbook registers or outdated medical information just sitting around the house, now is the time to safely discard them. The truck can also destroy floppy disks, CDs and hard drives.
The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at ESB Financial at Eighth Avenue and Merchant Street. For information, call ESB at 342-3454.
When you are spring cleaning this year, don’t give identity thieves what they are looking for.
Christopher White Walker
Editor & Publisher