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Torn-up Credit Card Apps Not So Safe
Maximum Prophet writes "This dude tears up a credit card application, tapes it back together, sends it in with his cell phone number and father's address, and voila, gets a credit card.
Who would have thought security at a credit card company was so lax? The company recommends that consumers "tear up" financial solicitations before throwing them away, "so thieves can't use them to assume your identity.", but according to them, "Applications that arrive in damaged form are customarily transferred to an electronic format, he said -- often by machine. So it's possible a human being never handled the taped-up application and never had the chance to spot the obvious sign of trouble." In this era where we worry so much about identity theft, this sort of thing really makes you wonder what the point really is.
Every problem has a solution! 8^)
I always shred this kind of thing.
-l
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'Shouldn't' this be the companies problem? MCI decided years ago I owe them money, I don't, and every two years some collection agency comes calling.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Nothing. Credit cards companies are not going to change. I've had checks cashed I forgot to even sign. Sheesh.
Why not just shred it using a cross cut shredder. thats what i do . I would like to see somebody put something that has been through one of those back together.
This is why people should invest in a good cross-cut shredder. They're not that expensive anymore and they're a good way to help lessen the risk of identity theft.
What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
use it as TP for your bunghole.
I always try to put different pieces of my financial documents in different trash bins. I suspose burning them would be even more effective.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
I need a shredder!!!
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
"Applications that arrive in damaged form are customarily transferred to an electronic format, he said -- often by machine. So it's possible a human being never handled the taped-up application and never had the chance to spot the obvious sign of trouble."
What, a machine opened the letter, recognized it was an application (and not, say, other junkmail that got stuffed into the nearest bulk reply envelope), fed it into a scanner, then trashed the hard copy? At no point in the process does a human see it? Sounds like bullshit.
So if they're transferred to Electronic format automatically? They have a machine that will open the letter, take out the application and then get it scanned in? Man, that's some robotic arm assembly.
It's not fraud because it's his own application
Spend $100 and get decent document shredder. I don't throw anything in the trash with my name and address on it period.
About 10 years ago someone went dumpster diving and got one of my credit card apps. They had a merry old time at Service Merchandise, in my name, until they got shut down. It was a mighty pain for me. And some skank VISA company was out $1000. Wonder why your card rates are so high? Now I shred everything, and throw away the shreds away weekly with dog excrement picked up from around the yard. I am no longer concerned about mail-based credit card fraud.
an ill wind that blows no good
He got the card in his own name, no actual fraud was comitted. This proof of concept only demonstrates that an actual fraudster could do exactly what he did.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Sure, it's not really the customer's money that's at risk here, but the banks. But who wants to go through all the stress of dealing on the phone with call centre staff, and possibly being temporarily overdrawn or whatever until it's sorted. If banks were hit with £1,000,000 fines/awards against them whenever something obviously dodgy happened, it might be worth their while fixing it. At the moment it's not really their problem.
Go to target, walmart, whatever and buy a $10 crosscut shredder. If you don't want your identity stolen, is $10 really that much.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
So it's possible a human being never handled the taped-up application and never had the chance to spot the obvious sign of trouble.
Let me make sure I understand this. The form was recieved, removed from an envelope, scanned and filed or destroyed all without having ever been handled by a person? Am I the only one who finds this a bit far fetched?
Find coupons in Greeley
It really comes down to is how much the company will benifit from the user signing up versus a fraudlant signup. Personal i take anything I get with my personal info on it and rip it in many different angles but they card will still get sent to you and you would need more information than whats on the paper to activate it. At least my Chase card did.
Bryan
Buy a shredder. I shred every credit card offer and transfer check my current credit card company sends me. It's ridiculous the crap they send me. One of these days, a thief is going to raid my mailbox before I get home and get a credit card in my name. Oh well. At least I get to play Enron Executive with my niece.
Why do banks accept any application, even ones with errors?
Banks want you to have credit -- of course they'll accept any application as long as the name and social security number match their lookups, and your FICO score is reasonably high (although banks are now lowering standards to give out even more credit).
When a bank offers credit, it does so based on money it has (of course). Yet it is very important for the average person to understand where this "money" comes from -- especially digital money such as you'd have when you have an available credit line.
All banks that are part of the central banking system (the Federal Reserve) are required by the Federal Reserve to stick something called a money multiplier. I believe the current money multiplier is 12% or so, but it varies. This basically means that a bank must keep a reserve of that amount versus the actual money is sends out. If a bank loans out $1000, it has to keep $120 in the bank. Even if it loans out the $880 ($120 in reserves) the bank can stil say it has $1000 in demand deposits available -- even though it doesn't.
The collusion comes into place when the first bank is given $1000 by the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is allowed to print new money out of thin air by creating loans against government property and future government income. This initial $1000 is placed in Bank A as available cash. Bank A holds $120 but loans the remaining $880 to Bank B which is also part of the Federal Reserve banking system. Bank A still holds a demand deposit value of $1000 which is available to be withdrawn! Bank B also has $880, but has to reserve 12% of it ($105). It then loans the rest ($775) to Bank C, but still lists $880 as its available balance of demand deposits. Bank C reserves its 12% ($93) and loans the rest ($682) to Bank D, while still listing the original $775) as its available balance. This collusion continues to go around until there is no more reserve balance available. In the end, the original $1000 the Federal Reserve created is held as a base reserve for the $9000 or so "new money" that is created.
Banks need people to accept this money in loans or in credit -- this is the way the bank actually makes money. Eventually all the loans are hopefully paid back into the system, so the bank makes a nice interest rate. On the new $1000 created, each bank wants to loan out as much as possible -- and these loans are used to buy goods, which recycles money back into the banks which can be kept as reserves to create even more money! If the bank takes $1000 and loans out $880 but receives $400 of that bank in, it can now loan out a portion of that $400 that it has in reserves.
In the long run, the system wants debt out there because it is created out of fake inter-bank loans anyway. Most of you don't even see your physical money because it doesn't exist -- there are about $600 billion dollars in circulation worldwide, but there are over $10.2 trillion dollars on the books!
And people have faith in the system.
Exactly who did he defraud?
Its his own credit card application that he sent in. He didnt steal someone else's.
If a real criminal would have attempted to tape it togather and send it in, the company would definitely not accept it...
And for the humor impaired ;-)
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
This was also covered in Bruce Schneier's Blog: Credit Card Companies and Agenda a few days back.
Said it before, I'll say it again, I worry more about handing my card to the PFK at the corner gas station that about people going though my trash or grabbing my info off of the 'net.
Most of the fruad that I've suffered has been at the hands of large corporations that reckon that my lawyer won't be willing to take on their lawyer.
Three Squirrels
When I rip them up I toss the halves into separate trash cans that generally get emptied at different times. I have tossed a few apps into the kids dirty diaper can. If you have to dumpster dive into those, man you must be hurting to be a thief.
Isn't there a human in the processing chain somewhere? Doesn't someone have to physically open the envelop and scan the application? It seems like that is the logical place to check for potentially fraudulent applications. I don't believe that step is automated, but then again I've never worked at a place that needs to process thousands of letter a day. Or is it that the person getting paid minimum wage to open and scan letters could care less if someone is committing fraud?
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
So some dumbfuck at the credit card company opens up an envelope with an application that was tore up and taped back together again, and then they issue the credit card? Sounds like an inside job to me... CHASE SUCKS!
The credit card companies and banks, whose lax security fuels billions of dollars of losses and ruined lives through identity theft, will emerge unscathed.
And they probably won't even change their policies.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Red Tape Chronicles is MSNBC.com's effort to unmask government bureaucracy, corporate sneakiness and outright scam artists.
I wonder when they'll be "unmasking" the "corporate sneakiness" so often displayed by Microsoft. Oh, wait..
...that they want to prevent identity theft. I'm a young guy (22) and I recently paid off my credit card debt from college. This has resulted in an outpouring of credit card companies looking to add my name to a card of theirs. On a daily basis I probably get 3 credit card applications in the mail. And the whole time I'm wondering, how did I get on this list, how do I get off, and what the hell happens if someone fills one of these out for me. Relying on common sense, I usually tear them up or burn them. Now I hear that maybe the tearing isn't enough. It's clear that credit card companies want you to sign up for another card so bad they don't even care if you are the one signing up anymore. Here's a way to help prevent identity theft: less unsolicited credit card applications in the mail. People are worried about spam and phishing when they haven't even solved the problems dealing with real world spam...
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
There's a foolproof way to keep this kind of identity theft from happening to you: just make sure your FICO score is really, really low!
That way, nobody will be able to get credit in your name. And, as a bonus, it's really easy to do!
figures, considering they bitch at us to beef up our secuirty with them, and look at them! they dont even bother looking at our applications. THEY ARE THE SECUIRTY THREAT. they all need a huge smack on the head...
I shred credit card applications, and then I dump it into the organic waste (i.e. compost bin -- paper is allowed). If people can retrieve it from that, after the little bits of paper are immersed in a wide variety of liquid, rotting food wastes for the 2-week periods between pick-ups, they deserve some kind of reward for their efforts :-)
>I really loathe these pre-approved credit card ads that come with large bright "0% for six months!!!" print on the outer envelope.
Amen. The reason I opted out of receiving those was exactly the one you mentioned, that they're a security problem.
The number to stop them at least used to be 888-5OPTOUT.
From: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/cred it_card_com.html
To understand why it's happening, you need to understand the trade-offs and the agenda. From the point of view of the credit card company, the benefits of giving someone a credit card is that he'll use it and generate revenue. The risk is that it's a fraudster who will cost the company revenue. The credit card industry has dealt with the risk in two ways: they've pushed a lot of the risk onto the merchants, and they've implemented fraud detection systems to limit the damage.
All other costs and problems of identity theft are borne by the consumer; they're an externality to the credit card company. They don't enter into the trade-off decision at all.
We can laugh at this kind of thing all day, but it's actually in the best interests of the credit card industry to mail cards in response to torn-up and taped-together applications without doing much checking of the address or phone number. If we want that to change, we need to fix the externality.
I always just stuff the application and other crap right back into the return envelope and let the credit card company throw it away... then they also have to pay for the return postage.
These things work wonders on flammables. (Last I check, applications on paper were flammable.) There you have it! Nothing's left but ashes.
What problem cannot be solved with fire?
Keep your eyes to the sky.
Better than a shredder, ask the banks to stop sending you the applications in the first place: http://www.optoutprescreen.com/. I used to receive several per month, now I get two per year.
I am alarmed by this article, but slightly comforted by the fact that he still needed his Social Security number to complete the app. Though I guess that can eventually be gotten by grabbing someone else's mail enough times.
There was a story on TV not too long ago about the Credit Card industry giving new cards to people who had just declared bankruptcy due to their massive Credit Card debt.
They were the perfect target for these unscrupulous companies, and no one was ever turned down for these cards.
After hearing this story, something like this does not surprise me.
If Money is the root of all evil, Credit Cards are the fertilizer.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
So, is this why my credit card has interest rates around 18%?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Why should I spend my money to solve a problem that some credit card company creates? Especially when I'm not even their freaking customer?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I was JUST on cockeyed before I came over here... weird...
really 867993
Karma schkarma
I don't know if these credit card companies are legally liable for this sort of identity theft, but they should be. If they are going to make money putting us all at risk for identity theft, they should pay for any damages we incure, including any inconvenience it causes us. Ditto for all these companies that collect data on us.
Maybe it isn't as high tech as we think. I don't know about the letter opening/processing part(are there machines that do this?), but maybe it is just some special scanner scans the applications in....
There is no excuse for how fundamentally destructive the lack of security is here. The federal government should make it a felony for the **company** to fail to properly verify that the person actually requested the credit card. But wait, that might make it harder for them to cut a cheap profit and for people to get 20 credit cards they'll never pay off, and that'd be bad for our economy-built-on-credit. So never mind, carry on as usual.
My guess is that if a human did see it, he didn't open it.
Something along the lines of a human mail sorter, and when he sees the envelope that CapiCitiWorld Bank sends out, he tosses that into a machine that scans the barcode on the envelope, cuts it open, extracts the form, and scans in the numbers and text. Computers doing the data entry are much faster then thier weak meat-sac counterparts.
So if a human did see it, he didn't see the form itself.
There are no gods but ourselves.
"That may be, but theres nothing stopping a would-be identity thief from raiding your mailbox in the morning before you can get to it."
Actually there is. It's called...a lock. Only two people have the key. Me and the post office.
There's also a similiar service for businesses. And also I cross-shred all my paperwork, while some burn theirs.
I work in Healthcare, and all our checks are handled by a machine at a bank. It opens the letter, removes the check, figures out how its orientated, and then scans it so it is face forward and right side up, then OCR's anything else and stores it to be reviewed by someone later.
There are exceptions to this though. If it is the stub you send back, it goes to a different path and is scanned into the record for that transaction. HOWEVER, if the item scanned matches enough "Keywords" such as an angry letter, then you run the risk of getting a "Form letter" But the checks are never seen by a person, as the machine processes 6000 letters a minute.... All we see is the transaction come across an interface and match to accounts at our location. So we only see a check in digital form if there is an issue.
If I wrote something witty, you would say I stole it from somewhere.
The scary part is that it's so incredibly easy to get credit these days.
...a cross or diamond cut shredder - you can pick them up at Staples for 50 bucks, and you can even shred your old credit cards with them (if you get one that can handle it). In the days of garbage picking identity thieves, the shredder is your friend.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
I shred it, then I set it on fire. I then take the ashes and compress them into a diamond-like form. Then I smash it apart, and put the crystal shards inside the event horizon of a black hole, beyond which no information about the black hole's interior can escape to the outer universe.
its the only way to be completely sure.
...my two sons dirty diapers.
Happy taping!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
In this era where we worry so much about identity theft, this sort of thing really makes you wonder what the point really is.
:)
The point is, that there isn't any point.
It's exactly that kind of thing, and the real lack of concern that I've witnessed from gov't agencies and financial institutions all along, concerning everything from someone's actual name and SSN being used as an alias by a known felon (and the SSA refusing to issue a new SSN for the "victim") to loan officers that say that there's so much junk data on credit reports that they often ignore a lot of it, that caused me not to worry if my "identity" is "stolen."
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
I use a cross cut shredder then burn the clippings. I then mix the remaining carbon with my cat's food. If some one finds a way to extract information from my cat box I'm impressed and I feel the information was earned so they are welcomed to it.
If humans aren't involved in the letter opening process, it's time to have some real fun...see how well their machines handle foreign substances
1) Save the return envelope.
2) Fold up a blank piece of paper with a nice wad of chewing gum/peanut butter/diaper contents/etc
3) Mail your "application"
4) ???
5) Profit
I'd guess yes, at no point in the process does a human see it.
Here's one vendor -- OPEX. This one does opening and extraction but isn't particularly fast at 17,000/hr. They have a scanning solution as well -- significantly slower but the mail goes straight from envelope to scan.
This is just what I've found in a quick search because I knew something like it existed; I'm not that familiar with the high-speed mail processing industry. I'd imagine that the technology would surprise most people.
to securely trash any personal information you must carefully follow this two step process (preliminary parts are buy a shredder and 1-2 guinea pigs.)
:)
;-)
1) Cross cut shred the documents, leave documents in bin
2) Every week change your guinea pig cage, and for bedding use the shredded documents/magazines
If any I-theif can put this back together after cross cut, parts being eaten, and parts being peed on, then they deserve all the money they steal from the bank, i still wouldn't want to sort through the crap
Shred up the application and mail it back with the prepaid envelope they provide. Works for me.
Yeah when I saw this on MSNBC the other day, I also called bullshit. Not only the opening, automatic feeding/scanner.. but the computer was able to OCR a taped up document? Doubtful.
For folks in the US: To opt out of receiving offers of credit in the mail, call: 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688). http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/idtheft .htm#Minimizing/
Before the invention of eruptions, lava had to be carried down the mountain by hand and thrown on sleeping villagers.
This type of activity is not new. Anything can get passed off and passed by other people. Some anecdotal evidence:
I accidentally deposited a co-workers check into my bank account. I picked hers up by mistake as her mailbox in the office is right above me. I signed the back and took it to the bank and deposited it. Later that day, I looked in my mailbox and there was my check. I asked the secretary if anyone was missing his check. Sure enough, I had deposited the wrong one. I didn't catch it, and the Bank people didn't catch it either.
When I sign for credit card receipts. I am known to sign with a name that is not my own. (Now watch me go to jail or get placed on some terrorist list, again.)In the past 5 years, Not ONE single person has asked me to verify my signature. I am talking everything from "Anonymous", "Jimmy Hendrix,", "Hillary Clinton" to "God". It doesn't matter. No one looks at the signature. Many times I am asked for an ID. When this happens, my hopes elevate, but alas, the signature goes undetected.
Finally at a firm I worked at before, during a security audit, I went to another department and informed the manager that the system administrator was going to backup everything on Friday night and restore it on Saturday afternoon. I told him that it is against company policy to store passwords, so I needed a list of everyone's Network Login and password and Email Account and password. This way the network staff would be able to restore passwords for everyone by Monday. I had the department passwords by the end of the day.
Is there a point to all my rambling? Not really. But it seems that the more we rely on computers, the less people can be trusted.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
No one seems to have caught on to one thing here - after he tore it up, he FILLED IT OUT and sent it in. When these things arrive in the mail, they aren't filled out for you - yes, they do have a couple things filled out, but you still have to put all your pertinent information such as your social security number and whatnot on the forms - they can't process that stuff unless you give that to them. That's the only reason it worked.
So sure, if you fill out a credit app, tear it up, and some bozo then pieces it back together, you're in trouble - but if you don't ever fill it out, where's the problem? Seems like a big pile of sensasionalist FUD to me.
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
Doesn't everyone use a shredder now ?
Preferably a crosscut shredder ? You know, the type that turns documents into confetti ?
And if one is really paranoid, have the teensy results drop into a bucket of bleach water ?
Working in the mailing industry, I'll call your bullshit, and raise you a scanner.
Not only is it possible, but probable. While I would expect a lot of errors, or "bad" data from the scan, I promise you it was scanned...
Agreed, sometimes I wonder why I bother using SSL for all email, TSL/SSL for all chat and firewalls and other security methods; once my data is out of my hands it's up to the weakest link in the chain to define how secure I am. You really need to provide more to get CC, SS Cards, lic, etc...I'm thinking either fingerprints or blood - it should be at least a couple of years until those get stolen very often.
fak3r.com
http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/creditcard/applica tion4.shtml
he posted a PHOTO of the card... oops. Sure it's hard to
read, nothing a little work can't figure out...
1) Credit card companies send out blank checks with your account info on them, in feeble attempts to get you to spend up with a lower interest rate where they will charge you jacked up rates when you don't pay in full.(and anyone swiping your mail can use your CC
as good as cash)
2) Credit card companies are sending out more and more "authoritative looking" mail offers that makes it look like a check is being made out to you, but it swindles you into some sort of agreement that will cost you more.
Even if you opt out with various agencies, all bets are off if you have a service with any company, and they will adwhore you until you submit!
These companies are extremely shady.
Look at the return envelope that comes with those applications...
In most cases, there is s P.O. Box or mailstop, and that alone decides where it goes, and how it gets handled...
I get 2-3 applications a day for credit cards. This is no joke, every single day for the last month I have gotten an app from Capitol One, sometimes two in the same day.... FROM THE SAME COMPANY. SO, because these companies choose to hopelessly send me application after appilcation, I am automatically obligated to shred them?? I dont even have reasonable access to a shredder..... but there is a nice fire pit in my backyard.
Who opened the envelope? Did a machine optical reader open the envelope? MacIke
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
From the http://www.ftc.gov/ websight: "1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) or visit http://www.optoutprescreen.com/ for details" This will prevent companies from pre-approving you for credit stuff. Cut down my mail by half.
The guy spends all his time doing crazy crap like this. I tried doing it once; sold wind from one of the hurricanes 2 years ago; got on the local news and Jay Leno showed the picture from eBay on the Tonight Show. Took way too much of my time. And this guy does this stuff, seemingly for a living. Wow.
Clearly they didn't make even the slightest attempt to validate the charge. I've closed that account and put fraud watches on our credit and so forth, of course, and no other suspicious charges have shown up. Still, it makes me nervous.
Meanwhile, my father-in-law discovered his bank account was several hundred dollars short. Turns out he was auto-paying someone else's gas bill. My wife had a heck of a time straightening that out. The bank insisted it was the utility's responsibility and vice versa. "He signed up for automatic payment!"
"My father doesn't own a computer. Why would you authorize withdrawls for someone else's utility bill in the first place? Especially when their account number is identical except for two transposed digits..."
A mistake in that case, but it would be so easy to do that deliberately...
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
The Solution? Fire. And lots of it! Try taping all that ash together, jerks!
Random idea on how to deal with credit card applications...
I kept seeing people talking about "why should I have to deal with it when it's not my problem?"
Well... Why not make it THEIR problem. Just take the blank application, stick it into the postage paid envelope (Tear off half of any identifying information if you wish - half so they don't have it all, and when you trash it, someone who picks through it doesn't have it all) and mail it back to them? Bam, not in your trash to be recovered, it's now their problem.
Um, I would recommend spending more than that. I bought a cheap one and the wheels bent, and some of the plastic broke. I now have a more expensive model that's built like a tank, and shreds not only paper but credit cards, and cd's.
I get apps every day and I live in a condo building. And everyday I tear them up and put them in the trash can by the elevator. In fact, everyone puts their junk mail there. So not only is it junk mail, but it's dangerous opportunity to have my identity stolen? How do we stop from getting these things!?!?!
Personally, I hope credit card compaines send me more applications. The glossy paper makes excellent kindling in the fireplace, and if they send me enough - I can heat my home for free!
1. Put application through shredder
2. Give shredded paper to pet bunnies to use as litter.
3. Since "A Penny Saved is a Penny earned" and you're not spending money on pet litter...
4. profit!
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
With the new law, you are entitled to a free credit report once a year. You can stagger your free reports from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion by getting a free one once per 4 months and scanning for any unusual activity. Remember, the best time to fix errors in your reports is now, not a couple of days before getting a home mortgage.
This is the real site: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp. Be aware of the other "free" sites that promises free reports, but actually enrolls you into their monitoring service that will charge you if you don't cancel.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Yeah, speaking of junkmail. I usually take their prepaid postage envelopes and jamb them full of all the other useless garbage I receive in the mail, such as coupons, magazine subscription offers, torn pieces of paper, etc...
Rob Cockerham on slashdot? All that we need now is a reference to Drew Curtis and the circle of the internet will be complete. Go check his other stuff, some of it is quite amusing.
Maybe the opening and scanning got outsourced to India?
For sale: Signature. One owner. Low miles. Always garaged. New punctuation, just installed!
moral: pay the CC in full, the day before its due and take advantage of the system...these usurious rates also eliminated the annual fees.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
That's exactly what I was thinking - I often send back the business reply envelope sans application as a small protest that will cost them a few cents. But what would it take to FUBAR these machines? It has to have about the same form factor as a legit application - a wad of chewing gum would probably be a tip off due to thickness or weight.
Ideas?
I shred everything with my name on it, then stick everything else in those convenient "no postage necessary" envelopes they provide and mail it them back to them. For extra fun, I mix stuff up and also insert any extra trash I have lying around. Keeps my garbage can from filling up.
Yeah I stole it from some comedian or something, but its still fun.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
Exactly!
The application form being torn up is a complete red herring in this. If someone had access to your social security number and other information about you, they could just fill out an application online. This article is sensationalist garbage.
Mmmm.. Donuts
The key to financial security seems to be vigilance. Paying attention to your balances in your accounts and on your cards via the web (i.e. once a month statements isn't enough) is the best form of prevention. I like to burn my important docs that I don't want/need. Credit card apps fall into this category.
Security is ultimately your responsibility, no matter what businesses would have you believe. Here's a great example.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
Care to link to one? Or do you just like to see yourself type?
"Churchstreet Technologies will scan the debris in a shredder's output bin and their software will reconstruct it in RAM. They claim to be able to piece together even crosscut documents as long as you haven't mixed several bags together. Seems to be that columns of number would be an intractable problem, I don't know whether they can manage those."
Well now you all know why the NSA doesn't rely on just shredding. Of course as the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran proved. Humans can do a good job of assembling shredded documents.
Yes, Opex dose do this. But thier equipment is really for check and bill sorting. To everyone that mails a bill it will go though thier processing. Also, the personel that are employeed at a Lock Box(your bank) are mostly temps. If you want a few hour delay in you bill being posted put a staple in it or fold your check. Then one of the temps can look at all your information. ex. employee of OPEX corp.
The technology now exists to scan fragments of documents en-mass and piece them together semi-automatically in electronic format. Some human interaction is still required, but it is much faster and easier than the Iranian effort. This is being done to restore ancient manuscripts but I'm sure it's being done in the covert and criminal fields as well with shreded documents.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
...that profits are so high, these companies make more money having leniant application processes than they lose from the fraud. Sure, the credit card company is liable for the fraud, but not the time it takes for the victim to rectify the situation.
We need to make fraud more expensive for the credit card companies.
The rule was that if the information was at all legible, we data enter the application. Security/fraud were somebody else's problem (hence invisible to us).
If the information was truly illegible, show the app around the office and make a consensus "best guess" at the illegible content.
Frightening, eh?
My new car insurance firm wanted my old policy number / stuff - I'd tore it up - so on the 2nd request I taped it together again posted it them , and got a discount back - what that says anout online insurance operations you can think about that yourself
they seem to accept distressed mail just 'fine'
Each of those loans is interest-bearing. The only way for you to pay back the loan + interest is for someone else to borrow MORE. Consequently, debt increases faster than the money supply. The only way net-positive money is created is if a whole lot of people go bankrupt.
Governments used to print money into circulation, reducing the growth of net debt, but most stopped doing that at the end of the 1970's (strange... there was sudden severe inflation at the same time... must just be a coincidence)
My wife did a few months on graveyard shift at a First Security payment processing center (before Wells Fargo assimilated them). She said those machines are *really* cool, really fast, and jam up so easily that they have dedicated staff on-hand to fix particularly nasty jams.
So if you want to put a (albeit small) dent in the productivity of the Evil Credit Card Sharks, send back those handy self addressed envelopes stuffed with their own junk mail. Be sure to fold, spindle, and mutilate the envelope, too. :)
Method of processing duck feet
Shred everything that has your name and address on it. And don't use some shitty straight cut shredder either. If you aren't using at least a cross-cut shredder, you are just wasting your time.
Do yourself a favor and opt out here: http://www.optoutprescreen.com/
I recently built a house and used a few credit cards heavily to shuffle funds around for a year or so during the build. Since we applied for a couple cards, and also obtained a home equity line of credit as part of the process, we found ourselves deluged with card and loan applications. "Deluged" as in "four or five per day". Waaaaaay too much shredding to suit me.
After a few months of frustration, I finally did some research and found that all three of the primary credit reporting agencies share credit with banks looking for customers, but they also all share the equivalent of a "Do Not Call" list for credit card apps. You can visit http://www.optoutprescreen.com/ and sign up to get your name off these lists, for either lifetime or two years.
I did this several months ago, while it took about a month, we're consistently down to a couple applications a week at most. (Almost all the remaining applications come from Capitol One, despite our repeated calls requesting that they stop. Scumbags.)
One other note: to get your name on the opt-out list, you have to provide some sensitive data. I did quite a bit of research before trusting this opt-out, but all that I found indicated they were trustworthy, and after all, they already have all the data anyway, so I wasn't giving them anything new. But do your own research anyway - don't trust me.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
I cross cut shred, swirl the bits and mix with well used kitty litter before tossing!
the cleansing power of fire
(fiddles with lighter)
maybe if i burn my house down no one can get my info. hmmm...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, it might just be sensitive data you do not want bug-prone meatbags to handle. Seriously, most forms banks, credit card companies et cetera recieve are handled by machines.
is send you endless reams of "balance transfer" cheques or convenience cheques. Not only are they a complete rip off to use as interest and endless fees apply the second you use one, but they get mixed in with all the other crap they love to send you in the envelope and you don't realize they're there. You end up throwning them away in the trash without voiding or otherwise defacing them to make them worthless. Any enterprising thief scrounging through your garbage can come across them and use them. This happened to a good friend of mine when she threw them away thinking they were some sort of advertising without realizing they were real cheques. Cheque fraud isn't the easiest thing in the world to do anymore, especially in Canada where no merchants will accept cheques anymore, but it does happen.
Ask them to stop sending them to you and they swear up and down it will happen, but it never does. It's just too lucritive for them to stop sending them to you.
If he'd torn up the preaddressed envelope, as well, I wonder if this would have been possible. Would the postal service process a taped-together envelope? If he'd used his own envelope and addressed it by hand, would the application have been processed by a human rather than by machine?
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
You want high volume processing? Try First Data. My Dad worked there for like 5 years overseeing hundreds of people who ran the machines that did this stuff 24 hours a day. For a while, I worked in one of the Quality Assurance departments for Credit Card bill printing and our team could (mostly) ensure the quality of over a million pieces every day. It's mainly an automated process, but there was always human verification at some point or another. But that doesn't mean that someone can't get sloppy! There were always bonuses the more you pushed through your department (but there were also punishments for letting something like that through).
The FTC has a good list of where to go to opt-out of pre-approved credit offers as well as direct marketers. The 888 number you gave is still valid, as is optoutprescreen, mentioned elsewhere in the comments here.
But then, it seems that PO Boxes are not allowed as addresses for certain kinds of accounts. Like Google AdSense for instance, and my Bank Account, and some utilities companies, etc... They seem to insist that I use my "home" address. "But that's not secure" I tell them. "Mail theft is illegal" they tell me. Right. Of course it is. I hadn't realized that just by it being illegal, we're all protected from theft!
So, since theft and tresspassing are illegal, I can leave my doors unlocked now and just leave the keys to my car in the ignition. If someone steals it, I can just tell the cops and my insurance company that "Of course I left it running with the keys in the ignition. Stealing is illegal!" Hey, my mail is considered "safe" in my plastic tupperware mail box out on the curb. Why not everything else?
You know, you have to have proof of an address- either on a state issued ID card, or using a utility bill with a name that matches your ID to get a PO Box. And you have to have a key (or combination) to get that box open, which sits in a lobby of a post office. A physical address? I can use any address in my neighborhood and just wait for the postman to come buy, then see what I got.
Can someone explain to me why a PO Box is not acceptable as an address? Google AdSense, are you listening? Where's my check!??
--
Have you hurled today? CatapultKits.com
tear all in half, throw half in your garbage... take the other half to a garbage elsewhere, I thought to say work, but who on /. works?
Sig Hansen?
It might amuse or even terrify you to learn that the new Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD12) that intends to give RFID based badges to all government employees to be used to give them access to government buildings and computer system, is planning to use *commercial banks* to process the security paperwork because of their cough-choke "experience" at handling identity verification.
I can only pray that the Washington Post is able to connect the dots and expose this cluster-fork before Achmet and pals go waltzing back to Durkadurkastan carrying suitcases full of plutonium that they checked out of a federal research lab using ID's issued to "American Dad".
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
Do what this guy did...
http://bash.org/?127039
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
All issuers verify new applications. Most verifications center around ssn, dob, lastname, and streetnumber & zipcode (they love numbers). Some issuers, when they get a returned pre-approved application that they sent to the mailing address they have on record, assume that any changes to the address are valid (original mailing was received by the potential customer, filled out correctly and returned with a new address or a new "mailing" address). So the fraudster who intercepts the card issuers outbound mail has a chance to have the card sent to a maildrop instead of the true-name owners address. It is much more difficult to pull that off using an online (web) application since the mailing address will differ and the flags will be raised (usually). The card issuer will then try to verify the new address.
Frankly, for this to work, the fraudster needs to know your ssn and dob. That said, you are likely already in a heap of trouble since this character is not going to stop until he succeeds to screw you. With or without the pre-approved app.
Actually, it is { name, date of birth, social security number }. A credit card strategy analyst I shacked up with told me that.
(Now that's an alternate type of karma whoring)
I figured that by now someone would have kept track of all their time spent shredding and would have sent a bill to the offending credit card companies for their time and inconvenience. It's on my list of things to do but all my free time is spend shredding this garbage.
Even an automatically scanned image of it would show tape, and if it was OCR'ed they would almost HAVE to go back to the original... all that tape would screw up OCR, no question. Someone HAD to have saw it and passed it along.
Why would it be in a company's best interest to send credit cards to crooks? After all of the legal fees for "stolen identities" lawsuits and the company's image, the company really is losing more than it gains. Here's what surprises me: he recieved the mail at address A, then sent it back with the address on the form being address B. They accepted the changed address without any sort of, "we'd like to clarify that your address is correct." Obviously card companies are losing money on these people, so why don't they just go the extra 5 minutes initially and not have to worry about 5 years of crap down the line? Especially when their own "protect yourself from identity theft" advocates cutting up the application and disposing of it. This guy cut his up into 12 peices. If a person just leaves his or her credit card application on the ground or something, completely intact, then he or she almost deserves to be duped. But this is just ridiculous action on part of the company. It is not only not in their best interest, but negligent, especially when they advocate cutting up applications into many peices.
Now, I learned something rather amusing about these applications and other junk mail from a friend of mine. What he has done for a long time is take all of his junk mail and put it into a stack. Then he opens it, and removes the preaddressed envelopes. He places other junk mail "offers" into the envelopes and sends it off. Slowly but surely his junk mail began to wane, as the company obviously realized they had to pay for additional postage for each preaddressed envelope. I heard about another guy who wrote "NO!!!!" on top of every credit card app he recieved in the mail, and the same thing happened. Perhaps you can beat a man at his own game...
I always send it back blank with a note saying 'Here, you throw this away.'
Adapted from the late Mitch Hedberg.
"When someone hands you a flier, it's like they're saying, 'Here, you throw this away.'
Make them pay postage twice for sending me crap...
Just take a sharpie, write "No thanks" across the offer, and mail it (including the envelope it came in, disclosure forms, brochures, etc.) back to the offerer in the prepaid envelope. The envelope gets pretty thick -- I'm sure it has to be processed by hand.
They only pay for return postage if the envelope they sent you is actually used. This at least doubles their cost of missing their target audience. I look at it as providing them free feedback on the accuracy of their targeting algorithms. "How're we doing?" "Not well."
From the website: Could a determined and dexterous criminal gather all the bits, tape them together and apply for a card in my name?
He applied for it in his name. He also had to write in his social security number. (Noticed how he blacked out these lines on the photo?) A credit check is then run, which matches the two. Since he sent it to his parent's address, I'm assuming he has lived at that address before. If he has any type of credit associated with that address, the credit check will pass fine because it is a previous address.
No fradulent application was submitted! He simply tore it up and taped it back together. If you're afraid of someone digging up your torn application, remember that they would also need your SSN and other information for it to work. Otherwise the application is worthless because the information cannot be verified.
glad to see that rob's website is able to take a slashdotting
If you're concerned about giving your information to random folks on the web, carefully read the next offer you get in the mail. It *should* contain in the fine print a phone number (or a link) to opt out of further credit card offers.
I'm not in my home office, so I can't verify the optoutscreen.com URL, but you ought to be able to call a number and enter yourself into an appropriate database. I did this, and see no targeted junk mail. I still see things like "To our valued neighbor, from your local pizza shop," but all the interesting stuff like credit offers don't show up.
Michael C. Hollinger
In finance it's called "leverage", and it's what allows us to get work done. Loans are where capital comes from, and capital is what creates the stuff that we sell to make money. Loans do more than buy goods. Capital hires programmers to write software, buys dry cleaning machines for a new dry cleaner, etc. That's money that makes money, because goods and services are produced with it.
The money multiplier doesn't fluctuate much, but the Federal overnight rate does. When that rate goes down, banks can borrow money more easily, and the stock market goes up. The market goes up because they know that eventually that money gets loaned out to people who will use it to make more money, which comes back to stockholders.
I know I'm playing up the good sides; I'm talking about business loans rather than the sort of unsecured personal loans that credit card companies make. And the credit card companies are clearly playing stupid, vile games by lending out money that they know perfectly well isn't going to be used productively, and trying to shuffle the risk off on somebody else. (Like the merchants; they often find ways not to pay the merchants in cases of identity theft.)
But I wouldn't blame the Fed for that. The fake money that the Fed creates can be come real money through productivity. That would happen without it, but much, much more slowly. It's the banks (and only some of them) that are really hosing up the system and blaming others for it.
If you're really parinoid like I am, I will shred those kinda docs, old credit cards, or other personal info and spread the shredded pieces out into different trash cans. That way its in a bunch of different bags that may or maynot be in the same can at the same time. A bit safer, not much, but a little more piece of mind.
Check out the kinds of things Pitney Bowes offers in terms of automating and managing the whole process of dealing with mail. They're a pretty big player in that field.
Let's try and have the banks be a little bit less responsible from now on. It'll make things easier for everyone. (and by "everyone" I mean "everyone trying to rip you off")
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
You do realize your post agrees with mine?
If you would expect a lot of errors or "bad" data, how was this company able to issue a credit card without human interaction?
Take it easy, there's no need to go postal on him. ;)
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
It goes something like this:
Congratulations!!
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
You know, I've had other friends suggest the "smear some of substance X on the paper" idea. I'm no lawyer, but I think sending biohazardous material through the mail is probably a felony, and would likely be the target of a much larger investigation in a "Post 9/11 era" than I'd care to be a party in. While peanut butter may not count, its less tasty digested form probably would.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
If anyone here has investment/rental properties!
BEWARE
The CC companies may be sending these to your rental properties in YOUR name! They won't mind issuing you a card AND one in your renter's name...and send both to the rental address............
Even if you have nice honest renters, you want to place a bet on them bothering to shred them for you 1st ?!?
Especially bad is if the renter works/used to work for you as they had access to SS number etc. At least we made $10k flipping her house she was about to default on for our trouble.
So if you want to put a (albeit small) dent in the productivity of the Evil Credit Card Sharks, send back those handy self addressed envelopes stuffed with their own junk mail. Be sure to fold, spindle, and mutilate the envelope, too. :)
Nah, just send back the application (blank) with a thin layer of jelly.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
You can opt in, opt out for 5 years, or opt out permanently.
Be warned however that if they don't have your address quite right, you will be taken to an automatic voice recognition system to fix it; there is no human contact allowed. While the system is impressive in its capabilities, it can't handle things like apartment numbers that start with numbers and ending letters. (It thinks 20C is 2060. Don't even try saying "C as in Charles" either.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Forgot to mention the solution I did end up using for a particularly determined bank which kept sending me high interest "pre-approved" credit card applications:
I made my own checkbox next to the "YES! Sign me up." that said "No thanks," and checked it. Naturally, I put it in the business reply envelope, along with a dollar or two in pennies (to be used toward the processing fee of course), and sent it on its way.
They never sent me another application.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
..is if I move. Chances are some stupid credit card company is still going to send an application to my old address. Not much I can really do about them
Rob is definitely my hero. That is an amazing website.
-Tim
"Bad" means they might spell your name wrong on the card, not that they can't issue it.
Sure, the OCR software that came with your scanner sucks ass, but that doesn't mean all OCR sucks. Especially if the form is OCR friendly (blocks to write each letter in, check boxes to confirm existing data instead of complete entry, etc...) Plus, unlike generic text OCR, there are easy checks they can do since the data is contextual instead of random. Does the zipcode match the city? Is that street name similar to an actual street name in the town? etc...
They probably could have issued this guy a card just by having gotten the form back and scanning the barcode on the bottom, because all his data was already in their system anyway. So how much OCR did they really have to succeed at?
Not only can they do this stuff, but they can do it at *very* high speed. And the technology isn't that new.
I take it you never had one of those magnetic strips fail. I have. If the strip fails, they will do the carbon-paper or other imprint method to verify the card and key the number into the machine.
If you would expect a lot of errors or "bad" data, how was this company able to issue a credit card without human interaction?
A healthy, heaping, helping of Not Caring. The cost in dealing with erroneous information is smaller than the costs of processing thousands of applications every day by human hand.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Now, I've got nothing against economics as a science - the study of how money moves, and can be made to move, from one part of society / the world to another is certainly complicated enough to be worthy of the term. But when things get made up to make reality match desires (not even expectations!), it loses all pretence of science - religion maybe (possibly one of those central american ones where they create the illusion of dead people walking by ingesting drugs and sacrificing chickens), or fantasy, but not science.
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
My I had to reread the blurb twice before I realized it wasn't talking about software.
"Tear up an app? What did it ship on, 5 1/4" floppies?"
send back a love letter!
"Dear Valued Customer,
Your order #23746 has been completely processed.
Thank you for using Acme Shredding and Document Disposal Service. Our regular rate is $0.4995 per page, minimum order is 1000 pages. Please ask us about our new exciting bulk rates!"
Or something.
Completely possible and probable. Working for a company that processes high volumes of mail, we have several machines that sort, open, scan and perform OCR on mail, cheques, and other types of paper. Hard copies are then archived into storage rooms. Humans only become involved for 'problem documents' or to verify the information once scanning is complete.
The sorting is usually done by the weight of the envelope, which is why I am surprised with all the tape this guy used, it was not sent into the 'problem document' pile, where a human would figure out what it is and where it should go. Then again, maybe a human looked at it, and thought it looked good enough to be processed.
Opening the envelope is very simple for the mail processing equipment to do, obviously.
The scanning is also quite simple, all those forms have digital templates loaded into the high volume scanning equipment. Usually the whole document is scanned as an image, and the relevant 'data areas' are read using OCR, then fed into apps/DBs. The scanned image may then be compared to the recognized data by human eyes, depends on the specific situation.
Do not wait until the day before it is due. The companies can take their swwet time processing your payment so it will be late and you will be charged.
"No tool is any good if you don't know how to use it."
Well that explains the low birth rate for geeks.
Why bother only shreading documents? I find it much more secure to shread my sensitive documents with a cross-cut shredder and burn the shreddings in a coffee can or other suitable non-galvinized steel container.
Credit card apps are also great for use as kindling while starting a campfire, fireplace, or the bbq grill.
Of course, if you dislike burning stuff, or are unable to set alight stuff, you can always throw limited ammounts of the shreddings, plus some water, into a blender and turn it into pulp. The pulp is good for making new paper, flushing down the toilet, or sometimes for plantfood.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
So I came up with my $0.50 shredding system: 1 bucket, 2 cups of bleach, water.
- put papers flat in bucket
- pour bleach, let sit outside until bleach- and ink- is gone (a day or two)
- and/or add water, wait, stir until its pulp soup
Takes a total of 5-10 minutes, and there's no recoverable information: much, much better than my old shredder could do. If I wanted to go artistic I could make paper from the pulp- but the bleach thrashes fiber quality. Maybe I could make some paper bricks to mail in those postage free envelopes if I ever felt I needed to give something back to the credit card offering companies.OMG! That's not jelly! EEEEEEWWWWWW!
Laser toner is my favorite
Scotch Permanent Double Sided Tape. Nice and sticky. Or how about a smear of rubber cement inside the envelope edges where the tools cut it open?
1) Save the return envelope.
2) Fold up a blank piece of paper with a nice wad of chewing gum/peanut butter/diaper contents/etc
3) Mail your "application"
4) ???
5) Profit
That's not called profit. That's called good karma.
-- dR.fuZZo
The 3 major credit reporting agencies all have methods to prevent "promotional offers"... In other words, the agencies will release aboslutely no information about you without your consent. It cut the amount of credit card offers per month from somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 down to 0. However, the number of balance transfer things I get is crazy. How the hell do I transfer my $0 in CC debt?
Isn't that just wonderful... a security risk from something I didn't even want to freaking get in the mail in the first place.
I love America.
Then let's see them put it back together...
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Throw your credit card apps away in the biohazard bag with the broken vials of ebola and used needles. Thus far no would-be identity thief has survived long enough to steal my identity...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I keep remembering the news clip showing Iranian students in the 1979 Iranian revolution putting together shreded documents cought in the American embassy - they were just long strips of paper and very readable once they were put together - I find it extremly stupid that the embassy didn't have an incinerator.
I burn mmy junk mail in my woodstove. I call it the designer delivered kindling. At least I get some BTUs out of it. And, I also burn banana peels, but pot roast trimmings go to the canines. Recycle! heh
I wonder if they'd accept the application if one wrote VOID over it in a thick black marker?
Lemme guess. Don't know, just throwing it out there.
Once upon a time, the credit card companies employed full-time, insured people who made careers being part of the credit card industry. They worked hard, got paid an adequate salary, and in general were assets to the companies and the customers.
Then, Lo! upon a Green horse, came He who is called Company Reorganization.
He on the Horse downsized the division. He increased the workload per employee, and canned those who couldn't keep up. He dropped the salaries, converted those left to hourly.
The He on the horse made sure the employees only worked 29 hours a week, and therefore were not full-time, and needed no health insurance outlays.
After a very short time, temp employees making seven bucks an hour replaced the wage earners, and who by definition had no health insurance. And it was good, as the profits increased.
The He opened the next seal, and fired the temps and the wage earning employees, and outsourced the work to Bangalore, where the employees were paid fifty cents an hour and were told that they could be fired for looking crosseyed at a light fixture.
And the profits were even better.
And people began to notice that the employees were doing silly things that former employees had never done, such as accepting taped together paperwork that were obviously fraudulent. And they wondered, "Why aren't the employees doing their jobs?".
Some people said it was because they were poorly educated workers with bad attitudes that should be pressed even harder to do a better job, or should be fired and replaced with eager applicants, easily found. And others listened, and rejoiced that wisdom was found.
Others said: Listen, assholes, if you convert your worker pool into uninsured minimum wage drones and work them like dying mules, they won't really give a damn about the customers OR your company. And those who heard said: Get fucked, communist, and go back to Russia, we need not your kind here.
And so it went...
Call this # 1-888-567-8688, and it takes you out of all four major credit reporting company lists.
You go through an automated process and they take you off their lists for 5 years. I did it this afternoon after getting 5 offers for credit. Too much junk mail and my poor shredder is now smoking.
I have the absolute best method for disposing of CC apps. I don't tear them up, shred them or burn them. I line the bottom of my cats' litter box with my CC apps. The way I see it if someone jackass wants to dig through my cats' crap then he earned my disposed-of app. The CC companies also deserve to get a really stained and smelly app in the mail.
I use a shredder for everything with my name on it. Strip is probably OK (it's not that it can't be reconstructed, it's that the crooks will just move on to something simpler), but if you want to be safe, use cross-cut.
Living in a poor community in Brazil has its moments.
Once I received a new credit card in the post, and following the standard instructions, cut the old card in half and threw it in the trash.
A few days later one of the kids down the road said to me, "you know that credit you broke? My mum's going to glue it back together".
It's normal practise for someone to go through all the trash here looking for anything that might be of value. I now cut cards into tiny pieces and distribute them through several trash bags.
It's not just for cooking squirel...
The article sought out what we already knew about credit card companies. To a credit card company, sending out obviously fradulent cards is good business, in the long run it'll earn them more income, a higher reported market share and more active card holders (all measures of a successful credit company.)
Much fraud goes unnoticed by card holders, particularly those that don't read their bills. (Even those that do read their bills find it difficult decoding excessively abbreviated store titles, active store names and the reality that many smaller stores put their credit card processing through days after the actual transaction.) The industry is prone to fraud on numerous levels.
Obligitory Spaceballs quote:
... ... Jammed! ... Raspberry.
Radar Operator: I'm having trouble with the radar sir..
Dark Helmet: What's wrong with it?
Radar Operator: I've lost the bleeps, I've lost the sweeps, and I've lost the creeps.
Radar Operator: Sir. The radar, sir. It appears to be
Dark Helmet: Jammed.
Dark Helmet: There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry.
Dark Helmet: LONE STAR...
Sure there are weaknesses in shredding, but a reasonable way for "civilians" to shred and dispose of documents using cross-cut shredders and a method I use: mix cuttings by hand in the bin for a bit, and then separate the parts into different bags to be disposed of at different times or locations. It's the poor man's way and adds management hassle, but it's effective.
Except that the credit company accepted a once ripped apart, taped application! I can't believe they accepted it in that condition. That should have raised red flags with them.
Regarding the CIA and document shredding... I saw on The Discovery Channel that the janitorial staff are among those with the highest clearance of any in the CIA. Since they are the ones collecting shredded documents which are then incinerated, then composted. Oddly though, the janitorial staff shown in the documentary didn't look like they were um... very well paid. I would imagine they'd make a lot more money selling bags of shredded paper than working for the CIA.
Shred the application, but if it came with a postage-paid return envelope, take all the rest of the crap in there, and fold up the outer envelope as well, and maybe some sawdust and dust bunnies, and mail it back to them so they have to pay the postage. Make sure you shred the bit that had your name and address on it or they might give you a credit card anyway.
Something to do while watching movies.
Man with torn-up credit card application scammed. He left his frigging credit card numbers in the photo with his name. Even if the last few digits are blurred, you can still guess.
What does sending something certified mail prove besides the fact that I sent an envelope to someone? I could claim I sent all the proper paperwork, the recipient could claim the envelope was empty. What do I have to do to be able to prove that I sent what I claim that I sent? Frank
Tear up the document, throw different pieces away in different locations throughout the day.
Fire is a wonderful thing b/c it burns plastic, or what you can do is shred and for even better security use an electro magnet to scramble the card so it won't work.
just shred it. Try the approach my dad has used for years:
1) Apply for every "freebie" or giveaway offer you can find to maximiize the amount of junk mail offers you get (don't give them E-mail just a real address.)
2) Buy a fireplace.
3) Save all that junk mail until winter.
4) Burn it all to heat your house.
5) Profit (or at least don't pay as much in heating costs.)
Another option I've heard of, where the form asks for gender:
I shred all of the credit card offers that I get, along with all kinds of other mail. I take it to my work's recyclying or my city's recycling center and dump into the appropriate bin.
If someone can actually put together a complete credit form and send it in, then all the power to 'em!
ANYTHING that has my name on it gets the 'shredder'!
With home shredders relatively cheap, there is no reason for anybody to worry about this, just laziness and stupidity.
Besides all important documents (birth/marriage certs, Dennis Ritchie's autograph, etc) are all kept in a plastic bag under the cat pan. Ok I'm kidding, maybe. never mind.
'nuph sed.
> OMG! That's not jelly!
Did anyone watch the Colbert Report today?
"Oh, that was the chicken blood. It looked just like the jam!"
Less tasty?!?!? How th hell you know its... Oh... Ewww....
the LOVE of money is the root of all evil.
Call the present credit card company and ask them to stop sending the transfer checks. Suprisingly enough they will stop. Or at least mine did. YMMV. IANAB.