Big Shred: Hundreds Turn Out to Combat Identity Theft

Hundreds of cars filled with tax forms, bank statements and old computer hard drives streamed into the parking lot Saturday as part of the bank’s annual Shred Event.

Though the bank has been sponsoring the event for years, it’s the first time it’s been held at the Darien location, said Pat Incrocci, who works in the controller’s office at West Suburban’s Downers Grove branch.

“I was a little concerned about moving it because people are used to going to Finley (Road in Downers Grove),” Incrocci said.

She didn’t need to be.

In the first hour, more than 300 cars brought documents for shredding and old electronics for recycling, said West Suburban President and CFO Duane Debs. NBC 5 consumer reporter Lisa Parker was on hand to greet people as they arrived.

Large trucks with shredders inside destroyed paper products on site, while electronics such as computers were shrink-wrapped to pallets and delivered to Vintage Tech Recycling in Romeoville. 

The purpose of the event is to help combat identity theft, said Tammy Kiser, an inspector with the Chicago division of the U.S. Postal Service, which deals with any types of crime involving mail.

Anything with personal information such as birth dates, social security numbers and addresses should be shredded once it’s no longer needed, she said. 

When the event first started, Kiser said only five or six cars showed up. Last year more than 1,000 cars came to the event in Downers Grove, each with as many as 10 boxes of documents.

“We’ve had to expand to accommodate people as the word got out,” she said.

Though one might think a down economy might make fraud an even bigger problem, Kiser said it’s consistently an issue.

“It shifts the kind of investigations we have to do, but it’s never down,” she said. 

For more information on preventing identity theft, visit the Federal Trade Commission website.