DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – Concerns about identity theft and similar fraud are helping to drive the sales of document shredders, according to a company that sells the things. A new poll shows that 80% of American adults say they're concerned about identity theft, but only 52% own a home document shredder, according to Office Depot. The big retailer, of course, markets the machines, but the impartial online poll was conducted for Office Depot by Harris Interactive among 2,500 people nationwide in the last week of February. Shredding documents before throwing them away is one simple step to help thwart identity thieves, experts have long said. The same poll also showed that about half (47%) of American adults do their own tax returns, and about a third of online Americans use tax software to do so. And as credit unions eye serving the small-business market, they might find it interesting that the same poll revealed that 64% of American office workers have either already set up/run their own business (24%) or have considered starting their own business (40%).
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