The date is now fixed on the calendar for the 2nd Annual Poughkeepsie Arlington Rotary Community Shred Event hosted by LaGrange Pharmacy and Bridgeway Federal Credit at the new plaza at the junction of Routes 82 and 55 in LaGrangeville, NY. That leaves 10 weeks to gather your confidential paperwork to take advantage of this great opportunity to securely dispose of your paperwork as well as support a great cause.

On-site shredding service will be provided by HV Shred, Inc from 9am-noon. 100% of the suggested $10 per box/bag donation will go to the community improvement projects run by the Poughkeepsie Arlington Rotary.

No need to worry about staples, paperclips, spiral notebooks, or even bank books. HV Shred’s high tech shredding knives can easily shred through all that. In addition, all the shredded paper is recycled helping to preserve and protect our local and global environment.

For more information, please contact Judith a (845) 705-7279

We’re looking forward to a big crowd so we can fully fund all the Poughkeepsie Arlington Rotary programs in the upcoming year.

Help us make it a success–and protect your identity and the earth as well!

See you Saturday, September 27th 9am-2pm at 1520 Route 55 in LaGrangeville NY 12540

As it is vacation season, here are some scams to keep top of mind.  Once again, we credit OnGuardOnLine.gov as our source for valuable id theft information.

A first tip is to be wary of the late-night call from the front desk telling you there’s a problem with your credit card.  The caller will ask to verify the number.  Keep in mind, it may really be a scammer on the line. If a hotel really had an issue with your card, they would ask you to come to the front desk.  Best practice, if you get a call like this, go to the front desk to do the verification in person.

Likewise, hotel guests are finding a pizza delivery flyer slipped under their hotel door. When you call to order, they take your credit card number over the phone. Unfortunately, the flyer is a fake, and a scammer now has your info. Before you order, make sure you check out the business, or get recommendations from the front desk.

Lastly for this week’s blog, the good old “Wi-Fi” network scam is one to be mindful of.  Just because it has the hotel’s name, it may not be secure.  By using it, you could give a scammer access to your information. Check with the hotel to make sure you’re using the authorized network before you connect.

We hope everyone is getting out and enjoying a summer vacation.  Keep these tips in mind to optimize the fun and minimize the stress.

For more information on best practices for identity theft protection, please visit www.hvshred.com

At HV Shred, we want to take a moment to focus on one of our favorite topics—the concept of “Think Local First”.  As small businesses across America struggle to keep their independent, locally owned businesses alive during the current economic downturn, the idea of keeping it local has never been more important.

Recent national estimates state that for every $100 spent at local businesses, $68 stays in the community. When you spend that same $100 at a national chain, only $43 stays in the community.

Local businesses contribute sales tax, income tax, and keep our local people employed.

Aside from the obvious financial benefits of keeping our dollars local, there are many intangibles that speak to the pride our islanders feel about what local means to their community.

When we shop local, we:

1. Keep dollars in our economy.

2. Create local jobs. Local businesses are better at creating higher-paying jobs for our neighbors.

3. Help the environment. Buying from a local business conserves energy and resources in the form of less fuel for transportation and less packaging.

4. Nurture your community. We know you, and you know us. Studies have shown that local businesses donate to community causes at twice the rate of chains.

5. Conserve your tax dollars. Spending locally instead of online ensures that sales taxes are reinvested where they belong – in your community.

6. Create more choice. Local businesses carry a wider array of unique products because they buy and sell based on what they know local customers like.

7. Take advantage of expertise. Local merchants are passionate about what they do and how to serve you.

8. Invest in entrepreneurship. Creativity and entrepreneurship are what the American economy are founded upon.

9. Make us a destination. The more interesting and unique we are as a community, the more we will continue to attract new neighbors, visitors and guests.

10. And…it feels good!

To learn more about your local choice for on-site paper shredding and data security, please visit www.hvshred.com

Relying again on a favorite resource for the latest news in identity theft protection, this week’s blog comes from OnGuardOnline.gov. In today’s economy, Big Data is big business. And data brokers — companies that collect consumers’ personal information and resell or share that information with others — play a key role.

The Federal Trade Commission recently released a study of nine data brokers. These data brokers collect personal information about consumers from a wide range of sources — including public records, loyalty cards, websites and social media — and provide information for a wide range of purposes — including verifying someone’s identity, marketing products and detecting fraud.

Here’s a summary of what the FTC learned:

• Data brokers collect consumer data from numerous sources, largely without consumers’ knowledge.

• Data brokers collect and store billions of data elements, including some on nearly every U.S. consumer.

• Data brokers combine and analyze data about consumers to make potentially sensitive inferences.

Under the circumstances, the Commission unanimously renewed its call for Congress to consider enacting legislation that would enable consumers to learn of the existence and activities of these data brokers and provide consumers with reasonable access to information held about them by these entities. With respect to brokers that sell marketing products, a majority of the Commission had four specific suggestions for Congress:

1. Consider giving consumers a way to easily identify which brokers have data about them and where they can go to access it or opt out. One way to do that: A central online portal.

2. Consider whether data brokers should have to clearly disclose that they not only collect raw data, but also combine it with other information to draw inferences about people. That’s especially important when it comes to sensitive topics like health conditions.

3. Consider requiring data brokers to reveal more about their sources. That would make it easier for consumers to track down and correct the source of inaccurate information (for example, a mistake in a public record).

4. Consider whether consumer-facing businesses should have to clearly disclose that they share information with data brokers and to give consumers choices, including opting out. For sensitive data – health information is one example – the FTC is asking Congress to consider legislation to require consumer-facing sources to get people’s affirmative express consent before they collect it in the first place.

The Report finishes with three let’s-get-real recommendations for the data broker industry: Implement privacy by designs, come up with better ways to stop collecting information from children and teens, and take reasonable precautions to ensure downstream data users don’t use it for illegal purposes.

For the good of our local and global community, these are real issues to keep in the forefront. For more on identity theft protection, please visit www.hvshred.com

College grads are already out for the summer and the grade school students will be close behind.  Vacations are on the horizon.  What follows are some gentle reminders while on vacation.  Truly, these are best practices all year round.  It’s the free feeling of vacation that leads us to want to reinforce common sense when we otherwise tend to let our guards down.

Here are some helpful tips to help reduce your risk of identity theft.

• Be careful with ATMS. It is not difficult to set up a fake ATM. Stick to the ones that are in banks and check it over to make sure it has not been tampered.
• Clean out your wallet. Only take along the credit cards and identity you really need. Leave a photocopy of the front and back of each card at home. This makes it easier to replace if they are lost or stolen.
• Stop your mail. Don’t let your mail build up in your box. The post office will hold it until you return for free.
• Use the hotel safe. While hotel safes are not Fort Knox, they are a better option than keeping it on your person.
• Beware of open Wi-Fi. Try to use networks that require a login and make sure you use encryption when passing any information.

For more on identity theft protection and best practices, please visit www.hvshred.com