by Stephen Dafoe
Morinville – This weekend BYOB means bring your own box at H&R Block. Their annual Shredding Day and open house, running from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. Jan. 25, is an opportunity for businesses and private individuals to have their confidential documents shred for free by Iron Mountain Shredding.
Franchise Manager Alicia Sullivan is hoping people will come out and take advantage of the free shredding and privacy information sessions being offered throughout the day. “It’s safe and secure shredding for personal documents. If anybody has stuff piling up from years and they don’t have a shredder, they can bring their documents,” she said, adding the only condition is participants must attend a short privacy seminar. The privacy sessions run throughout the day and take under 15 minutes.
Sullivan said the sessions will inform people on a number of important privacy items, including how to prevent fraud, how to keep your identity safe, what documents people should be shredding, how long certain personal information such as tax returns should be kept, the importance of shredding documents, and events that have been happening involving identity theft.
“There are a lot of people stealing identities out there,” Sullivan said. “We have a lot of fraudulent [activity] with people stealing IDs and making fraudulent IDs. After you get your identity stolen it’s really hard to get everything changed over. It takes a lot of time so it’s better to be secure before it happens than have to go through it after.”
Sullivan said H&R Block runs the event each year because it is important to the Morinville branch to have clients and residents know the company takes privacy seriously. “We never give any of their information out and we want to make sure we are helping the town keep their privacy secure.”
The event takes place at H&R Block, located at 10006 103 St. Participants are encouraged to register ahead of time to hit an information session convenient to their time schedule. Those interested in participating can call 780-939-5571 or e-mail mbc.morinville@telus.net.
