Several years ago, I had my identity stolen. Not in a high tech way, mind you. It was stolen the old fashioned way. This person got a hold of some of my mail, including one of my bank statements. Back in the day, these contained your social security number and included all your canceled checks.
One of my credit card companies was the first to tip me off. My gold VISA card (which I didn't carry and hadn't used in months) had a number of suspicious charges on it. A few days later, a routine check of my bank balance indicated that my account was overdrawn. When I asked to speak to a real person to clarify what surely must have been a mistake, I was told that my business account was overdrawn by $4,000! Fortunately, my bank was really good about this and had copies of all the fraudulent documents for me to look over by the following business day. This person had actually washed the ink off checks I had written! I had the carbons to prove it, but you would have never believed it to see it. There was no trace of the original ink to be found.
After notifying police of what had happened, I was told to place a fraud status on my credit. In doing so, I discovered that this person had applied for credit in my name at a local computer store and had ordered approximately $10,000 of merchandise which was waiting to be picked up. Lucky for me, I caught this one in time.
All in all, this person got away with over $10,000 of goods using my credit and bank accounts. It took me eight months (and a whole lotta stress) to get this ironed out.
So if you're wondering why I shred absolutely everything that has my name and address on it (including harmless looking solicitations), that's why. And if you think I'm being paranoid, read this.
I'd be happy if I could eliminate all paper account statements being sent to my house--I opt out of them whenever possible. I'll take my chances with the hackers. Maybe this is stupid, but I'd rather know that my credit has been compromised by an extremely intelligent person using sophisticated, high-tech means than by some white trash, crack whore who randomly chooses my mailbox to break into.