To obliterate your address on packaging

Nice to know I'm not the only one concerned about my name and address being in my bin. I usually use scissors to cut off the label, then snip it into tiny pieces.

people need far more than just a name and an address to steal identity.

No one has yet given any examples of people being scammed, cheated, had their identity stolen or anything else as the result of people bin diving for informarion.

The real danger is disposing of documents with bank details and numbers on. So forget worrying about the envelope and start worrying about the other paper you put in the bin.

Exactly Monica I certainly destroy anything with any ‘ bank details’ on
My name and address is known by half the world I don’t understand the logic at all of this

Did anyone ever worry about sending cheques off into the post as used to be the traditional, and still is by all accounts on some threads?

Not only are you probably sending your name and address you are giving your bank details and signature ✍️!

Some folk must live in constant fear and I can’t begin to imagine their anxiety levels.

Doesn’t anyone (of the name and address worriers) not do internet buying?
Every time you buy something online your details are out there ? Far more dangerous than your name and address in your bin !! It just happened to me and the man in the banks fraud ‘squad’ who I rang to report it to said it happened to him last week and the young lady I spoke to in the bank said she had it happen three weeks ago !!!
I only ever use responsible sites with ‘trusted’ payment schemes I never use Chinese sites and haven’t used anything new to me lately so…….

NotAGran5

Some folk must live in constant fear and I can’t begin to imagine their anxiety levels

A bit dismissive.

Consider this. A respected consultant surgeon in my local hospital told me that there was an occasion when a drug-addicted individual ran into the hospital, got into the lift up to the first floor, ran along the corridor into the first ward (a surgical ward), grabbed the drugs trolley, went back down in the lift, and was caught running down the road with it.

I said I found it almost unbelievable and he told me that he had been informed by the local police that addicts will, given the opportunity, rummage through people's bins to find discarded drug labels which indicate the the addressee is in possession of controlled drugs - usually strong opiates. Why? In order to burgle the home if possible for the drug. Simple as that.

Now I'm sure it doesn't happen frequently and it's not something I spend much time thinking about, but as I am prescribed opiates, I do destroy the drug labels.

Our street is a main thoroughfare and most people put their bins out overnight because the bin collection time varies. So in theory, anyone can have a rummage through the bins. If such inclined individuals are bold enough to steal a drug trolley from a hospital, I'm sure they would be audacious enough to rummage through a bin or two, and as there are increasing numbers of burglaries in our area, it seems like a practical step to take.

... but, I don't live in constant fear nor have increased anxiety levels.

Most drug addicts are too addled to sort through the contents of a bin carefully looking for bits of paper with an address on., dive in and food grab, grab a drugs trolley (he did not get away with it)

All sorts of exceptional things happen. Moving marine objects regularly run into staionary marine objects but no one has suggested we ban ships or do not build bridges, light houses, docks etc etc.

I really don’t fret about my name and/or address going into the bin and have very little, if any, paperwork detailing finances, if I do it’s filed, the majority is online. Cyber hacking is more likely that someone going through my bin.

Not dismissive at all Dickens, simply factual and caring.

I wouldn’t put any drug labels in my recycling bin either if I took any medication, simply because I wouldn’t want my personal life blown down the street.

M0nica

Most drug addicts are too addled to sort through the contents of a bin carefully looking for bits of paper with an address on., dive in and food grab, grab a drugs trolley (he did not get away with it)

All sorts of exceptional things happen. Moving marine objects regularly run into staionary marine objects but no one has suggested we ban ships or do not build bridges, light houses, docks etc etc.

Most drug addicts are too addled to sort through the contents of a bin carefully looking for bits of paper with an address on., dive in and food grab, grab a drugs trolley (he did not get away with it)

I'm quite sure most drug addicts - addled or not - don't dive into wheelie bins, but clearly - unless the police were telling huge porkies - some do. It's not a high probability, but for the sake of snipping the odd drug label, it's worth taking the precaution as it only requires a few seconds to do it.

I have never been burgled, but was with a friend fairly soon after she was. The burglar had stolen her drugs along with other items - probably because they were there, but she was worried that he (or she) might come back for more. Drug addicts do go to great lengths to get hold of their fix apparently, so I don't see why destroying a label which only takes a few seconds would not be regarded as a sensible precaution.

And no, the trolley-pincher didn't get away with it - obviously he was chased by the staff long before the police arrived. And, anyway, the majority of drugs on the trolley were for bowel problems - suppositories, stool softeners and laxative gels, which is why the subject came up for discussion - because the consultant surgeon thought it an amusing anecdote when we, the patients, jokingly asked why the drugs trolleys were now chained to the wall when not in use, and asked him if he thought we might run off with it.

All sorts of exceptional things happen. Moving marine objects regularly run into staionary marine objects but no one has suggested we ban ships or do not build bridges, light houses, docks etc etc.

Well quite. But no-one has suggested banning anything.

Chopping up the odd drug label isn't in the same league as banning ships or not building marine objects.

Obviously the chances of being a victim of a drug addict are slight, but the the one that is the exception might find the experience quite distressing, so as the avoiding action is so simple, I cannot see why those who take it are being frowned upon.

I recycle many of my packages so I always remove the labels and shred them. Any letters or other papers have my address obliterated in thick black marker.

If a drug addict could riffle through your bin, wouldn't he know the address anyway? It would be the same address as the bin . He wouldn't even need to know your name if the plan were simply to burgle the houses of those he found with evidence that there might be controlled drugs on the premises. How many bins would he need to examine before finding something that suggested the house might contain useful substances, though? It doesn't sound like a very efficient way of casing the joint (no pun intended).

I'm not being dismissive - as I say, Mr D not only obliterates details but then tears off the see-through windows on envelopes to put them in the other bin, despite the fact that we've been told that this isn't necessary for the purposes of recycling. I don't see the point in either, but do it as it keeps him happy. I just wonder at the reasoning, as I get no sense out of him, and would genuinely like to know what risks people think are involved in having your name and address connected on something that is in your bin.

As others have said, I do make sure that bank details are not legible - I can see how they could be put to nefarious use - but we get very little by way of paper correspondence from banks these days. I do the same with private things such as medical letters, or anything else that I wouldn't want the neighbours to see if the paper blew out on its way from the bin to the wagon. Love letters from George Clooney - that sort of thing . That's for my own privacy though, and I don't see my name and address as particularly private.

Oh, and in the days when students submitted paper copies of essays I would always take identifying papers back to work for shredding in confidential waste. That was a pain, but in the unlikely event that a bit of paper with 'A Smith - Fail', or 'B Jones - Plagiarism' escaped from the bin and was found by someone who knew them and made the connection I would have been in trouble. It's so much easier now that everything is submitted electronically and I can access it remotely.

Doodledog

If a drug addict could riffle through your bin, wouldn't he know the address anyway? It would be the same address as the bin . He wouldn't even need to know your name if the plan were simply to burgle the houses of those he found with evidence that there might be controlled drugs on the premises. How many bins would he need to examine before finding something that suggested the house might contain useful substances, though? It doesn't sound like a very efficient way of casing the joint (no pun intended).

I'm not being dismissive - as I say, Mr D not only obliterates details but then tears off the see-through windows on envelopes to put them in the other bin, despite the fact that we've been told that this isn't necessary for the purposes of recycling. I don't see the point in either, but do it as it keeps him happy. I just wonder at the reasoning, as I get no sense out of him, and would genuinely like to know what risks people think are involved in having your name and address connected on something that is in your bin.

As others have said, I do make sure that bank details are not legible - I can see how they could be put to nefarious use - but we get very little by way of paper correspondence from banks these days. I do the same with private things such as medical letters, or anything else that I wouldn't want the neighbours to see if the paper blew out on its way from the bin to the wagon. Love letters from George Clooney - that sort of thing . That's for my own privacy though, and I don't see my name and address as particularly private.

I don't think it's so much a question of an addict rooting around in your bin and matching up a drug label with the address of the house, rather that an individual mooching around in a bin - any bin - finds a label for an opiate with the name and address. Doesn't necessarily have to be a drug addict, maybe someone who knows the £street value of a subscription drug.

The drug I am on is one of the most abused drugs on the street today. I don't know its street value as I don't mix in those circles, but in the States, a strip is worth hundreds of dollars - which is maybe worth the odd riffle through a bin, even if only perfunctory, or just looking for anything else of value?

Then of course there's the chance of the label blowing down the street - I have found some papers from a neighbour's bin outside my door after the bin men had emptied the re-cycling wheelie, so it does happen.

I think we probably now all take precautions that may not be necessary because of the continuous warnings of identity theft, scamming, etc, even though the chances of it happening might be slight. I haven't sat down and studied it or given it too much thought, I don't know what tricks devious individuals get up to, so I just cover all bases, basically and just snipping at a label for a few seconds doesn't seem like much of an onerous task. I certainly don't lose any sleep over it, nor has it created another layer of anxiety.

That makes sense. I do destroy labels on boxes of drugs - in my case more because I am very private and wouldn't want a stray label being seen by a neighbour. Mine aren't valuable or particularly confidential (asthma inhalers and BP tablets) but still, it's my business, like my Gorge Clooney love letters. I get that.

I also fully understand that we don't necessarily have to have good reason for doing things, or to justify them to others. It's just that living with someone who has been known to take things out of the bin, sigh, look pointedly at me and cross my name off a circular for no reason that he can articulate, I wonder why it matters to so many people.

Jaxjacky writes: Cyber hacking is more likely that someone going through my bin.

Exactly. Shredding or erasing materials containing personal data, including drug data, is a sensible precaution but it seems rather perverse to doing that while at the same putting personal data on social media sites - here and others.

It’s worrying just how much people disclose about themselves on GN: their town or city, their birthday or even their date of birth (e.g. I was 80 on Sunday and we had a lovely family party.), where they bank, who they shop with, what their regular habits are, when they are going to be away from home for short or long periods of time etc etc.

GN is an open forum and what is posted can be seen by anyone across the world. One doesn’t have to watch many true or fictional crime programmes to see how very easy it is to put together a profile of someone just from what they disclose on social media. It’s all open source material. Investigation agencies (not just the police) use it. Why not a scammer?

Were GN to be hacked (which I imagine would be easy), the hackers would get an email address which may comprise someone’s real name and be the one they use for everything. Even if it isn’t, they would have the IP address from which a physical address can be pinpointed. Match that data to the data they have from other hacked websites - datasets change hands on the dark web for a few hundred dollars - and they can easily get a full name, address, phone number etc.

People might be surprised to learn what data is already held about them on the dark web. It could have come from seemingly benign sources which turned out not to be very secure but where you gave your name, address and phone number. It could be something as simple as registering for a mail order catalogue.

Find personal information from a social medium comprising mostly older women, many living alone, chatting that they bank with …. shop at …. have downsized recently (clue that there’s probably a lot of cash sitting in a bank account somewhere) or that they have plenty of expendable income and you have all the ingredients to scam someone.

Hello Mrs **. This is **** Bank fraud department (because you have disclosed where you bank on a public forum). Can we run through some security questions with you? Your address and post code? Thank you. And your date of birth? Thank you. Now they know they have the right person. We have detected some fraudulent activity on your account to do with [somewhere they know you shop] … See how easy it would be?

I do understand that people value their virtual frendships and like to chat but it seems pretty pointless stressing about a label that gets mashed up in a filthy RCV with tons of other card and paper recycling from thousands of households while, at the same time, disclosing personal information on an open forum that leaves someone open, not only to cyber crime but to old-fashioned burglarly. Criminals have their own social networks for sharing data. Don’t make it easy for them.

I agree that the level of personal information disclosed by some posters is worrying. The Good Morning thread is a particular example. And if a poster’s name, address and date of birth have been found, a burglar also has the golden opportunity of knowing when they are going on holiday and for how long they will be away. It’s a lovely friendly thread, but a goldmine for those with nefarious intent.

Jaxjacky writes: Cyber hacking is more likely that someone going through my bin.

It most certainly is! And I assume most people know that - I mean, it's something we're consistently being made aware of.

The reason we are talking about address labels being 'redacted' is because the OP posted an easy hack to do it (which I haven't tried)... and the thread has just developed on to the whys and wherefores on the matter.

yes I remove all identification from all rubbish/recycling. we were advised to do that some years ago!

Who advised you, and why did they say it was important, though?

I know we are not supposed to comment on other threads, but some posters might consider shredding or obliterating names and addresses as ‘faffing’, especially some Mumsnet members.

I don’t, however.

If I thought it made a difference I would do it I just don’t understand what harm anyone knowing my name and address can do unless it has additional information along with it

Doodledog The only official advice I can find is in a Home Office indentity theft checklist signposted by Action Fraud which says:

Never throw away bills, receipts, credit or debit card slips, bank statements or even unwanted post without destroying them first, ideally with a shredder. Always protect your post, especially if you live in a building where other people can easily access it.

data.actionfraud.police.uk/cms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Identity-theft-victims-checklist.pdf

Bluebell A name and address may not seem useful on it own, but for a determined fraudster, your recycling may just be the start, one small step towards them being able to commit identity fraud, facility takeover (the kind of mobile phone fraud featured on Scam Interceptors) or selling that information on to others.

Say, I search your recycling sack. I find your name and address from what looks like a greetings card envelope. I find an Amazon box which has had the labels removed. Unless this is a house of multiple occupancy, I assume it’s you who has the Amazon account. I also find various discarded window envelopes. I don’t need to see statements. The return addresses on the envelope backs tell me who you bank with and your credit card supplier. (One very good reason to go paperless unless you shred empty envelopes as well.)

I then look on social media including community notice boards and the dark web to see what else I can find out about you and your habits. There’s a good chance I will find your name, address, phone number and email address from a hacked database that has been sold on or just from something you are or were once involved with. (Data stays on the web for a very long time unless you take active steps to have it removed.) I then compare what I have already found with other hacked databases to build up a profile of you.

Take the Home Office advice to use a credit score agency to find out what information is held about you including what is on the dark web.

You may have opted out of appearing on more recent electoral rolls but your name will appear on old ones that are published online. If I know it’s a home that appears to be owner-occupied and that home does not appear on land registry sales that postdate the electoral data , then I know at least how long you have lived there. That’s very useful when registering for or applying for things that ask for length of residency when the question is presented as a list of options e.g under ten years, over ten years.

Key is not be become over anxious or paranoid about all this. Just be aware of the various ways that determinered fraudsters and their associates can find data about you and take simple steps to protect yourself.

Never throw away bills, receipts, credit or debit card slips, bank statements or even unwanted post without destroying them first, ideally with a shredder. Always protect your post, especially if you live in a building where other people can easily access it.

Thanks, but this still doesn't say why, which is what I'd like to know. Of course I wouldn't bin an unredacted paper bank statement if I had one, or anything that I wouldn't want people to see - but I can't see why throwing out an unwanted Lands End catalogue, or marketing fliers is dangerous, and that CAB advice doesn't explain.

Take the Home Office advice to use a credit score agency to find out what information is held about you including what is on the dark web.

How do I do this, please? I do know my credit score, and can see things like searches against my name, but I thought the point of the dark web was that it was untraceable. I'd be interested to see what information other than things like phone contracts is held about me. My social media is locked down, and I use different emails for different platforms, so it's probably unlikely that they could be joined up. Also, isn't it only the police/security services who can get a home address from an IP?