Celebrating Freedom

Posted on by HV Shred

Sitting around the Seder table at this year’s Passover Seder telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt and the liberation of the Jews from the tyrant Pharaoh made me think about the small ways in which our on-site shredding service is also a liberation.

Not on biblical proportions–but on-site shredding service does free businesses of many frustrations and worries as well as providing the assurance of the certificate of destruction as well as the benefit of recycling shredded paper.

At HV Shred, we want to introduce the business community to a world with no security breaches, no removing staples and paper clips, no overheating or paper jams; no noisy shredding and dusty bags of shredded paper; a world where shredded paper saves trees and water and oil.

This is the world of on-site service with HV Shred.

In this world, we preserve and protect reputations as well as the environment. So far in 2015 we have shred and recycled enough paper to preserve and protect nearly 4000 trees!

For more information, please check out our website www.hvshred.com

A Season For Cleaning & Going Green

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This past Saturday was Earth Hour–a celebration to bring awareness to the limited resources and the preciousness of our home planet–Earth. Earth Hour is a worldwide movement for the planet organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The event is held worldwide annually encouraging individuals, communities, households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on the last Saturday in March, as a symbol for their commitment to the planet. It was famously started as a lights-off event in Sydney, Australia in 2007. Since then it has grown to engage more than 7000 cities and towns worldwide. Today, Earth Hour engages a massive mainstream community on a broad range of environmental issues. The one-hour event continues to remain the key driver of the now larger movement.

Whether you participated in Earth hour or not, we strongly urge our community to consider the option of securely disposing of confidential paperwork in a fashion that also helps implement sustainable practices.

HV Shred does on-site shredding services for business and residential clients throughout the Hudson Valley and we recycle all shredded paper.

To learn more about our secured document destruction, please visit www.hvshred.com

Reduce, reuse, recycle–stay secure!!!

2015 Shred Event Schedule

Posted on by HV Shred

Over the course of the 2014 events in conjunction with the Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union (HVFCU), Walden Federal Savings (Now Hometown Bank of the Hudson Valley), Wallkill Valley Federal Savings, Hudson Heritage Federal Credit Union, and Mid Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union we are thrilled to have helped community members recycle over 50 tons of paper, saving over 800 trees and 150 cubic yards of landfill.

If it’s posted on this page, the event is free (a donation may be suggested) and open to the public with a suggested limit of 3 file boxes/garbage bags and the like per person. The intention is to be a resource for the residential community. We appreciate your being mindful of keeping the line moving and being appropriate with the volume of shredding you bring to an event.

Announcing the schedule for 2015 (likely more to be added):

Friday, April 10, HVFCU Pleasant Valley Branch 9:00 am – 12:00 pm

Saturday, April 11, HVFCU Montgomery Branch 10:00 am – 1:00 pm

Friday, April 17, HVFCU Carmel Branch 10:00 am – 1:00 pm

Friday, April 24th, Poughkeepsie Library District Adriance Branch 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Friday, April 24th, HVFCU Beacon Branch 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Friday, May 1st, HVFCU Highland Branch 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Saturday, May 2nd, Jawonio Fundraiser Hosted by Lynch’s Restaurant 79 S Liberty Dr, Stony Point, NY 10980 11:00 am – 2:00 pm Donation to Jawonio required

Friday, May 8th, HVFCU Hyde Park Branch 9:00 am – 12:00 pm

Friday, May 15th, HVFCU Rhinebeck Branch 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Saturday, May 16th, HVFCU New Windsor Branch 9:00 am – 12:00 pm

Friday, June 5th, HVFCU Hollowbrook Branch 10:00 am – 1:00 pm

Monday, June 8th, HVFCU Arlington Branch (Tucker Drive) 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Friday, June 12th, HVFCU Newburgh Branch10:00 am- 1:00 pm

Stay tuned for more!

Your financial institutions and towns are the most likely to sponsor the shred events, so please suggest they contact us for more information about scheduling an event. Contact Judith @ judith@hvshred.com (845) 705-7279

Another Email Scam to Watch Out For

Posted on by HV Shred

Frequenters of the HV Shred blog know that we often use this space to share valuable information we find on OnGuardOnline, the FTC blog designed to share information for consumer protection. A recent post by Consumer Education Specialist Amy Hebert caught our attention as worthy of sharing.

Hebert writes about a new scam email that says it’s a court notice from the Bureau of Defaulters Agency-FTC with your arrest warrant record attached. It says you’ve ignored their efforts to contact you, so now your Social Security number is on hold by the federal government, you’ll be prosecuted for fraud, and you’ll owe all kinds of money when you’re found guilty. You’ve got just 24 hours to respond.

It’s not true.

There is no Bureau of Defaulters, and the FTC doesn’t send emails like this to people.

If you get an email like this, forward it to spam@uce.gov, then delete it. Don’t click on any attachments or links. Scammers send convincing-looking fake emails with links or attachments they want you to click. When you do, you could download malware onto your computer. If you’re not sure whether an email is real, you can always look up a phone number yourself and contact the court, company, or agency the email claims to be from.

What if you already clicked on the attachment? Follow these steps to get rid of malware. You also can file a complaint with the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint, then visit the FTC’s Identity Theft website. Victims of phishing emails like this could become victims of identity theft, and there are steps you can take to minimize your risk.

The FTC has scam alerts you can sign up for to find out about the latest scams. Go to consumer.ftc.gov and click on Scam Alerts, which include a category for imposter scams like these.

For more on best practices in Identity Theft Protection, please visit www.hvshred.com

FTC aims to tap into private sector’s brain trust

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Robocalls are not just annoying—they are also costing our economy money through lost productivity as well as some falling to the scams. Aiming to tap into the private business brain trust, the FTC is returning to DEF CON with a new robocall challenge.

Zapping Rachel, the FTC’s 2014 contest, challenged security experts to build tools that investigators could use to track and minimize illegal robocalls. For 2015, the agency is hosting Robocalls: Humanity Strikes Back, a contest that asks tech gurus to create tools people can use to block or forward unwanted robocalls automatically. Forwarded calls will go to a honeypot — a data collection system that researchers and investigators can use to study the calls. $50,000 in prize money is on the table for the best solutions, with $25,000 going to the first place winner.

Similarly, the FTC also that as part of the National Day of Civic Hacking on June 6, 2015, the agency is challenging the tech-savvy public to DetectaRobo. For this challenge, contestants will use call data to develop an algorithm that predicts which calls are likely to be robocalls. Submissions are due June 7, 2015.

Each contest has its own website with more information, including rules, criteria, and judges. Visit ftc.gov/strikeback for the DEF CON challenge and ftc.gov/detectarobo for the National Day of Civic Hacking contest.

These contests are part of the FTC’s larger efforts to combat illegal robocalls, a problem that has grown worse since advances in technology have made it easy for robocallers to send out thousands of calls every minute and to display fake caller ID information

We look forward to the contest generating some productive solutions.

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

A Happy February Record

Posted on by HV Shred

In this month of record low temperatures, we are warmed by our record total of shredding and recycling. Thanks to the continued support of the Hudson Valley business community and our recent acquisition of Metroshred we shred and recycled nearly 80 tons of confidential paperwork in the month of February.

That’s enough paper to protect over 1000 trees and nearly 250 cubic yards of landfill.

We look forward to keeping the momentum going with Spring, yes it is coming…Spring cleaning!!!

Please keep in touch with how we can help securely dispose of confidential paperwork–both on-going monthly service as well as on-call cleanouts.

On-site shredding service is the most secure. We provide the certificate of destruction to substantiate a client’s due diligence, and we RECYCLE the shredded paper.

For more information, please visit www.hvshred.com

Latest Tax ID Theft Scheme

Posted on by HV Shred

Tax season is now in full swing and a story dominating the scene has been false filings specifically targeting TurboTax users. State tax departments are telling victims they should contact the Internal Revenue Service and their state tax authority as well as the Federal Trade Commission.

The FTC advises consumers who have discovered theft of their identities to contact the three major credit-reporting firms — Equifax Experian and TransUnion — to place initial fraud alerts on their credit files. These alerts last for 90 days and can be renewed. Victims are entitled to a free copy of their credit report, which they can use to identify suspicious activity and dispute errors.

Consumers also can ask the credit-reporting firms to impose a credit freeze, which makes it harder for a thief to open new accounts. Your personal information also may have been used to rack up unauthorized charges on credit cards or to open new accounts.

Of course, TurboTax is assuring the public their software is safe whether downloaded or using the cd.
Still, some experts believe that using downloaded software can be safer than online preparation, although far fewer taxpayers use the former. With software, “you’re not putting your personal information on a company’s server,” says David Barton, a managing director at UHY Advisors, an information-security consulting firm in Chicago.

Intuit and outside experts say one of the best protections against identity theft is to change all passwords on a regular basis and make sure they are strong.

A huge safety issue is taxpayers using unsecured Wi-Fi access. Anyone using computer software applications should be using the latest versions available and making sure there is a password on home Internet access. Taxpayers should also update antivirus software to help prevent thieves from getting access to their information.

As always, be on the lookout for “phishing” emails that purport to be official notices from the IRS or tax preparers. One recent phishing attempt, for example, warns that “Your Federal Return Has Been Rejected” and asks the recipient to click through and enter personal information.

State tax departments are telling victims they should contact the Internal Revenue Service and their state tax authority as well as the Federal Trade Commission.

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

New Year File Maintenance Guidance

Posted on by HV Shred

With all the snow lately, there has been some extra quiet time for offices to go through old files and do some new year cleaning out.

Here is some basic guidance:

Whether it is a client’s financial information or your own, you need to shred all documents. This includes paperwork that has credit card information or bank and routing numbers. It can be voided checks or bank statements. Any pages that have sensitive financial information need to be shredded.

Any paperwork that has employee, client, or your personal social security numbers should be shredded. This can also include customer ID numbers that are used to get into accounts.

If your forms require someone to write down pin numbers or login information for their accounts, these documents need to be destroyed. Should they fall in the wrong hands, it can put someone at severe risk of information breach.

When you are ready to clear out old clients or personnel, be sure you get rid of any documents that have contact information. This is to include email addresses, physical addresses, and phone numbers that will tie the individual to the contact information.

If you are getting rid of receipts, be sure to send them through the shredder. This can include original receipts as well as copies of receipts. It is best to keep yourself safe from people who can find this information and use it against you.

Still unclear what needs to be shredded? Go ahead and shred everything. This might not be the best idea if you are paying for the services, since it will cost you more. However, paper shredding should be taken seriously. If you are in doubt about what has to be shredded, go ahead and put it in the stack. It is better safe than sorry when it comes to HIPPA compliance.

It is a good idea to keep a running list of all documents that need to be destroyed. This will help you avoid throwing away information that should have gone through the shredder.

If you have any questions about this article, or need assistance with your shredding program, contact us today!

The more sensitive the information, the more important it is to have it destroyed securely.

Let us help keep you compliant and lessen the burden when handling sensitive information. Contact HV Shred, Inc today www.hvshred.com

HV Shred and Metroshred Merge

Posted on by HV Shred

Great news Hudson Valley!   Judith Papo, President and owner of HV Shred, Inc. and Dean Rothstein, President and owner of Metroshred Document Destruction are excited to announce as of February 1st the two companies have merged.

“We have long considered ourselves partners in the industry so this just makes that relationship official,” said Judith Papo, President of HV Shred, a Southern Dutchess based on-site shredding service. “We both approach our clients as extended family, so this is a marriage made in heaven.”

We will continue to provide the highest level of security and customer service to the Hudson Valley business and residential community with our regularly scheduled service, as well as our on-call cleanout service, and community shred events.

To learn more about government compliance including HIPAA, best practices in secured document disposal, and identity theft prevention, visit www.hvshred.com

More From the IRS Dirty Dozen Scam List

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A couple of weeks ago, we covered the fact that Identity Theft is still the top scam as determined by the IRS.  The other prevalent scams warrant attention as well.

Though there are lots of warnings about pervasive telephone scams, many are still falling prey.  These involved the use of false and misleading information that is conveyed to the taxpayer via the telephone.  Some of the calls are made by parties alleging to be from a given organization or government agency, especially the IRS.  Since the fear of the IRS is a top fear, listeners are prone to take heed.

Scams may include the allegation that the victim owes money and may even threaten arrest or driver’s license revocation.  Calls are sometimes followed up by fake calls from the local police department or state of motor vehicle.

Scammers may create a fake name and IRS bagde number; use the last four digits of the victim’s Social Security Number; spoof the IRS’s toll free number on Caller ID; send bogus emails; or use background noise to mimic a call center.  These with the intent to make their contact seem legitimate and actual.

The advice from the IRS is to do the following:

If you know you owe taxes or think you may, call the IRS directly 1 (800) 829-1040.  The IRS employees at that line can help you resolve any such issue.

If you know you don’t owe taxes and have no reason to think you owe, then call and report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 1 (800) 366-4484.

For more identity theft and general best practices please visit www.hvshred.com