Better Business Bureau of Wisconsin: Free fall shred event helped record number of Wisconsinites fight identity theft

CONTACT: Lisa Schiller, Media Relations
PHONE: 414- 847- 6055

E-MAIL: lschiller@wisconsin.bbb.org

Milwaukee, Wis. – The Better Business Bureau of Wisconsin’s fall ShredFest events in Milwaukee, Appleton, Madison, and Manitowoc were very successful, with record totals.We had a combined total of more than 2,300 cars and shredded more than 41 tons of documents on October 4th and October 25th.

ShredFest is part of a larger, national event hosted by BBB offices throughout the country. The Better Business Bureau Serving Wisconsin has been holding free shredding events twice annually since 2007. At our spring ShredFest held in May, we shredded more than 32 tons of documents.

Piranha Paper Shredding (Milwaukee), Pellitteri Data Destruction (Madison), and A.R.M.S., Inc. (Appleton and Manitowoc) conducted the massive shredding using multiple trucks at each location.

Partnering with Summit Credit Union (Milwaukee and Madison) and Thrivent Financial (Appleton and Manitowoc), attendees enjoyed the convenience of staying in their vehicles as volunteers removed boxes of documents from their cars and placed them into shredding bins. Event participants could witness the document destruction and departed with BBB information given to them on identity theft prevention and sponsor gifts.

“BBB is thrilled to sponsor this free event that helps protect people against identity theft”, said Ran Hoth BBB CEO and President. “Thanks to our shredding and banking partners, and local media who helped us get the word out, we were able to help thousands of people reduce their chance of identity theft by shredding more than 77 thousand pounds of personal documents.”

Identity theft is the nation’s number one complaint, according to the Federal Trade Commission. One of the most common methods used by thieves to steal personal information is dumpster diving, which entails rummaging through trash looking for old bills or other documents that contain personal information.

BBB along with its sponsors Thrivent Financial and A.R.M.S., Inc. hosted an additional ShredFest event in Manitowoc on Saturday, October 25th.

BBB’s next biannual ShredFest event will be held in Spring, 2015. For the date, time and locations of our next event and for more information on preventing identity theft visit www.bbb.org/wisconsin.

For more information or further inquiries, contact the Wisconsin BBB at www.bbb.org/wisconsin or 414-847-6000 (metro Milwaukee), 920-734-4352 (Appleton), 608-268-2221 (Madison) or 1-800-273-1002 (elsewhere in Wisconsin). Consumers also can find more information about how to protect themselves from scams by following the Wisconsin BBB on Twitter, Facebook and You Tube.

ABOUT BBB: For more than 100 years, Better Business Bureau has been helping people find businesses, brands and charities they can trust. In 2013, people turned to BBB more than 132 million times for BBB Business Reviews on more than 4.5 million businesses and Charity Reports on 11,000 charities, all available for free at bbb.org/wisconsin. The Council of Better Business Bureaus is the umbrella organization for 112 local, independent BBBs across North America, as well as home to its national programs on dispute resolution, advertising review, and industry self-regulation. BBB Serving Wisconsin was founded in 1939 and serves the state of Wisconsin.