How To Choose A Shredding Company?

Document shredding is no longer a nice to have like it used to be once upon a time when the world was still not haunted by the horrible crime of Identity Theft. If you own or work for any business that stored customer information in paper documents, you already know how important it is to shred paper documents in Florida. If you haven't considered using a professional shredding company yet, this article might help you get started in that direction and reduce your company's risk from litigation.

When contracting a document shredding service, there are many essential benefits to look for and then some nice to have's. The very first decision to make is whether to go with an onsite shredding service or an off-site shredding service. Both the shredding options are considered safe as long as you are using a trusted Shredding company. The choice really depends on your needs and the quantity of paper you are dealing with. As the name suggests onsite shredding options do their shredding right in front of you. A truck comes to our place neither to our business place nor to our home and shreds right there. Many companies with the modern technology provide a camera in a truck to ensure that each and every document is completely destroyed. A certificate of destruction is also provided by them, an essential document for HIPAA compliance. The shredding company will take the shredded documents to their warehouse to recycle. Several environment conscious businesses consider recycling a very important benefit of using Shredding services and advertise about that (recycle every bit of paper used) on their websites and PR material, a smart thing for companies to do these days.

The next option is the offsite shredding service. Off site service provides you with the container to place the documents in. Then they lock the containers, load them to the truck and take them to the shredding company to destroy them. As in onsite shredding, the truck is provided with the security camera to ensure the complete destruction and also provide with the certificate of destruction. In this option, the time of destruction is also noted. It is important to keep the following criteria in mind when choosing a shredding company. It is important to choose a trustworthy and reliable shredding service since you do not want the information contained in our documents compromised.

1. Certifications The National Association of Information Destruction (NAID) which acts as an independent Auditor, checks shredding companies with 22 critical areas which include everything from the shred size to employee background checks. The association provides only some companies which offer ultimate secure document shredding with the AAA Certificate. When selecting your Shredding company, you can ask for a copy of their NAIDcertificate as proof of secure shredding.

2. Lock Security Most of the off-site shredding recycle the paper by separating the white documents from the colored documents. When choosing an off-site shredding company be sure that your confidential information is not exposed out. When we choose a off-site shredding, we have to make sure that bins have a unique key.

3. Service time Check for the average service time offered. Ask to be provided a schedule if you need service in one or two days. You should not hire a shredding company that misses pickups. This means that your shred bins could be overflowing. You should also confirm that the company offers On Time or Shred Free service guarantee.

4. Destroy Other Media Most of the companies generate all the confidential data in other forms other than paper. Some shredding companies cannot shred anything other than paper. So they have to shift the bins to shred the documents in other formats other than paper. Select the company which has advanced equipment to shred everything including paper, CDs and even hard drives.

5. Hidden charges Shredding companies often quote low and slam companies with hidden fees at a later time. Get an exact quote in writing and also ask if there are any additional charges.

6. Insurance protection Make sure that the shredding company provides at least $3,000,000 in general insurance as well as an errors and omissions insurance. 7. Prescreen employees Make sure that the company conducts ongoing random drug tests for all the members in the organization.

8. Lowest price guarantee As some company uses modern and advance technique for shredding, we should ask the company if they will offer the guaranteed lowest price.

Shimshon Hazan operates http://www.shredexonline.com, the leading provider of anti-identity theft shredding services in Florida. Visit http://www.shredexonline.com/why_shred.htm to know more reasons to choose onsite shredding services for your business.