By Marcia Moore
The Daily Item
LEWISBURG —
Lynn Askew came across a forgotten 1984 tax return when she went looking for old documents in her Selinsgrove home to be shredded.
She took a box of unwanted papers — including that old tax return — and watched Friday morning as all of it was torn into small pieces in a mobile unit operated by Keystone Mobile Shredding Inc., of Williamsport.
"I don't need it anymore," Askew said.
Her friend, Joan Jovez, of Lewisburg, was aiming to thwart identity thieves by discarding her unneeded paperwork in the mobile shredder.
"I just don't want to throw anything out in the trash anymore," Jovez said.
That's wise, said Karen Metz, president of Keystone Mobile Shredding and a certified identity theft risk management specialist.
"Once you throw something out in the garbage or a Dumpster, it's in the public domain and ID thieves can legally go through them and take it out," she said. "They can take an identification and commit crimes, get jobs and ruin you financially."
Identity theft victimizes 10 million Americans each year. It's the fastest growing and most difficult crime to crack, with only about one out of 700 cases solved, Metz said.
"Someone could be sitting in front of a computer in Nigeria accessing your information," she said. "How do police in Pennsylvania work with Nigerian officials to prosecute?"
Metz offered her mobile shredding service for free Friday morning at the request of Home Instead Senior Care, of Lewisburg, which provides services to 150 seniors in their homes in Northumberland, Snyder, Union, Montour, Lycoming, Columbia and Clinton counties.
Jo Mueller, a community services representative with the agency, said the agency wants to assist seniors in getting rid of old documents, such as tax returns, medical records, old checks and Social Security forms, so they won't clutter the home and be available to identity thieves.
Many seniors are wary of turning over personal documents, but Mueller said Metz's mobile shredder offers peace of mind because "they see it disappear in front of their eyes."
Metz's company travels across the state, taking mobile units capable of shredding 5,000 pounds of paper per hour to private homes, business and government offices and recycling the shredded material.
She and her husband, Rick, started the operation eight years following a job loss.
Metz said they noticed privacy laws were changing and identity theft was becoming prevalent and decided to jump into the document shredding business.
"Seventy-five percent of identity theft could be stopped if we checked IDs," she said, speaking to the lax attitude in which credit and debit cards are often handled.
Norm Rich, of Lewisburg, is so diligent about getting rid of old papers that in 2007 he hired Keystone Mobile Shredding to visit his home twice a year.
Even so, Rich had compiled a small pile of documents he didn't want laying around so he drove over to the mobile unit Friday and disposed of it.
"I don't like to keep them laying around," he said.
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