My husband was cleaning the yard this weekend and came across a piece of paper. He brought it in and showed it to me. "This is why it's so important to shred important documents."
Since I'm the one who does all the shredding, he was speaking to the choir, but he was right. What was this document that blew into our yard?
Someone's paycheck, complete with pay stub. And all the relevant information that goes along with that. The disposal of the check was likely an accident; but if it wasn't, and for some reason the check had been intended for the trash, everything a thief needed to know to steal that person's identity was right there: name, address, SSN, and I had a good clue how wealthy that person was (not very; I suspect the check belonged to a teenager).
I've had my credit card number stolen before. I think they must've infiltrated some online site's database, because they had the CC number and our address, but not our phone number or the CCV number from the back of the card. It takes years to clean up the mess when an identity thief does his work. I've had to change credit card numbers about four times in the last two years.
We mailed the check back with a note to the owner that if he doesn't need it to shred it. Let this be a reminder to everyone: better to be safe than sorry. If it has personally identifiable information on it, shred it. If you aren't sure, shred it. It takes less time to run an extra few sheets of paper through your paper shredder than it does to deal with the problems of a stolen identity.