Shredder Sales Rip Upward

Remember those whirring boxes that turned sensitive documents in the Iran-Contra case into so much packing filler?

Well, they’re not just for government scandals anymore.

With increasing reports of thieves pilfering sensitive financial information from trash bins across the country, a growing number of Americans are flocking to stores to shell out from $50 to $300 for household paper shredders.

As a result, many of the nation’s largest manufacturers have reported tremendous jumps in shredder sales this year.

Fellowes Manufacturing Co. of Itasca, Ill., which has been in the shredder business 15 years, has seen sales climb more than 50 percent.

Northbrook, Ill.-based GBC has had a 70 percent increase in shredder sales.

“We’ve never seen anything happen like this,” says Todd Henreckson, director of GBC’s shredder division. “It’s the fastest-growing category that my company is involved with.”

Within three months after coming out with a low-priced shredder, GBC had shipped more units than all of its 1995 models combined, Henreckson says.

Price cuts have made a difference, manufacturers say.

Household models that formerly cost more than $100 now sell for about half that.

But Henreckson believes that’s not the real force driving the sales boom.

“There’s a growing paranoia in the U.S.,” he says. “People worry about their private becoming public.”

The range of buyers amazes him.

He has heard from a church choir director who purchased one of the machines. He has gotten a letter from a recycling program whose bins were raided by crooks who stole credit card numbers.

One man, Henreckson says, got the shredder from his wife for his birthday.

Friends of Livonia, Mich., resident Pauline Correy thought she was just being paranoid when she invested $250 in a cross-cut paper shredder earlier this year.

But now, Correy says, with more attention being focused on identity fraud, many of her friends are jumping on the shredder bandwagon. She bought the machine about five months ago to prevent thieves from getting their hands on her credit cards and other financial information.

“I used to cut off my name and address and shred it with a scissors,” Correy says. “It was taking me hours.

“My time is more valuable than that.”