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.

Comments

Possible? Yeah, but highly improbable

[defile]

"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.

Re:Uhoh.

[Rob T Firefly]

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.

Solution!

[wiggles]

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.

True, but why is it *my* problem to solve?

[Weaselmancer]

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?

Re:But He Filled It Out

[R2.0]

The point he was tyrying to make is that the standard advise of ripping up credit card offers is worthless if any random person can tape the pieces together and apply for credit in your name fraudulently. That's why he applied in his father's name - he put in a fradulent application and it was accepted.

I know I'm going to be more careful to shred them all, but if you still think it's useless, that's fine by me. Send all of your ripped up CC applications to me, and I'll dispose of them.

Re:whose fault

[InsertCleverUsername]

'Shouldn't' this be the companies problem?

Can MCI provide you with a copy of a document you signed regarding the charges? If not (and if I'm not mistaken), what they're doing is illegal.

Please forgive me for sounding condescending, but parent and grandparent posts are COMPLETELY missing the point. It doesn't matter if it's illegal, all that matters is the they (giant, godless corporations) have infinitely deep pockets and an army of lawyers, while you have enough trouble making the rent. They are COUNTING on this.

As long as they're vastly more powerful than us, it is usually to their advantage to create problems for you that you may (or may not) pay to make go away. I finally paid a lawyer over $5,000 to correct MBNA's refusal to stop reporting credit fraud as mine. Once the 100 page brief was filed with the court and MBNA saw that there would be financial consequences, they finally backed off.

There's a huge difference between what's illegal and what's prosecuted.