by Ann Marie Dwyer

Created on: April 24, 2007   Last Updated: December 06, 2008

Much of what is thrown in the trash can point an identity thief's telescope into our lives. But you have the power to blacken the lens.

Junk mail, prescription bottles, receipts and packaging to products allow identity thieves a chance to pretend to be us. These are the primary steps to protecting your personal identity from thieves.

1. Shred or tear up junk mail. Credit card offers are the number one way that identity thieves pick their victims. Before tossing that offer into the trash, make it unusable to a thief. Dispose of half in the main trash can and half in the bathroom trash. This way it cannot be reassembled easily to use the telephone options.

2. Follow the Federal law when disposing of prescription bottles. Remove all labels from the bottles, destroy the labels and dispose of labels and bottles in different receptacles. This keeps the thieves from being able to access your medical records and commit fraud.

3. If not keeping receipts from the stores or the bank, shred them. The best practice to keeping thieves from gaining access to your identity is to keep receipts and file them. If throwing them away, shred them first.

4. Voided checks must have portions removed to prevent identity theft. Remove the name plate and shred. Remove bank name, security identifier (located above the date line), amount box, a portion of both the routing number and the account number, signature line and payee. Dispose of the pieces in separate locations so that the check may not be reassembled.

5. Expired credit cards should be cut into no less than four pieces. As with checks, dispose of the pieces separately.

6. If receiving narcotics or insulin from a mail order service, destroy the packing slip completely. Dispose of the shipping carton separately from the inner packing after removing and destroying the labels from both.

7. Detailed usage of telephone bills should be kept at least three years. When disposing of them before then, shred the bills into small enough pieces that they cannot be reassembled.

8. All receipts and bills from loans should be kept for at least three years and destroyed before disposal.

9. All explanations of benefits (EOB) should not be disposed in trash intact. Separate identifying information from the body of the EOB prior to placing in trash.

10. Credit reports should be shredded when no longer of use.

If you feel you have not been able to sufficiently destroy or shred papers before their disposal, pour ammonia into the trash. Ammonia will react with most all vegetable inks and make them unreadable and unusable.

Don't let your trash can be a treasure chest for identity thieves.

Learn more about this author, Ann Marie Dwyer.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.