Recently an escrow office was contacted by local law enforcement to come to the police station to pick up documents with the office's contact information on them. Law enforcement stated the documents appeared to be thrown out in the trash, but had instead been found in a bag in the backseat of a suspected criminal.

The manager received more details from the police officer when she arrived at the station. The police arrested a woman they had been investigating in connection with reported identity theft. Upon arrest, the police found a shredding bag of documents in her back seat from both the escrow office and from other sources. The documents from the escrow office were dated two weeks prior.

Apparently, the woman stole or purchased the documents from the off–site shredding company prior to them being shredded. The manager picked up the documents and returned to her office to comb through them.

The office personnel sent a notice of security breach to each consumer whose information had been exposed in the crime along with a coupon good for two redemptions of CreditCheck® Basic through Experian®. The office then terminated their relationship with the off–site shredding company and immediately hired an on–site shredding company.

In other related news…another office had their shred bins emptied by an off–site shredding company. The shredding company employees entered the office, removed the bins, emptied them into their truck and then placed the bins back in the office.

As they were pulling out of the parking lot, the National Escrow Administrator happened to be following them. To her amazement when the shredding truck pulled out into the street, the back door swung open and it began raining documents on the street.

The escrow administrator had to make some daring maneuvers to pull the shredding truck to the side of the road to tell them to lock the back door of their truck – and more importantly – to collect the hundreds of documents all over the street.

Unfortunately, on–site shredding does not offer a complete solution. There have been incidents with on–site shredding vendors too. One vendor lost documents when a big wind picked up, because its employees were not shredding in a secure facility.

The Company has contracted with approved shredding vendors that maintain a NAID certification (National Association for Information Destruction). Part of the certification process includes tracking the "chain of custody" of documents to be destroyed.

For instance, when the Company destroys boxes at a FNF Record Center, they cannot possibly destroy 200,000 boxes on–site. The approved shredding vendors bring their trucks to our facility for loading. Upon leaving, they close, lock and take a picture of the back doors. They can also show us when the truck arrives to their locked, secure facility where the shredding occurs. Done properly, off–site shredding can be just as safe as on–site shredding.

If your operation is utilizing a shredding vendor that has not been approved by the Company and/or is not NAID certified, it is important you terminate the contract and engage in the use of one of the Company's national vendors.

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Or you can contact your national escrow administrators for more information at settlement@fnf.com or at 949.622.4425.