Thousands of documents shredded at annual Columbia event

The Better Business Bureau held its annual Shred Day event at the Office Depot at Providence and Broadway in Columbia Saturday morning.

Sean Spence, Columbia Regional Director with the BBB, said they shredded seven tons of paper from 221 cars in just three hours.

“If you want to protect yourself, from identity theft, one of the key things you need to do is get rid of those old, sensitive documents,” Spence said. “Don’t leave them around, don’t throw them away. You have to shred them.”

Recent studies claim 15.4 million Americans were victims of identity fraud in 2016, up 16 percent from 2015.

Spence said documents with your name, birthday and social security number should be shredded right away. He said it’s still important to hang on to some important documents for some time before shredding them.

“The average person needs to keep all their old tax documents, anything related to that, for three years,” he said. “If you think your taxes might be complicated for any reason, you ought to do it for seven years.”