Even torn-up credit applications are unsafe

[alicia-w]

A friend of mine recommended this tactic instead:

Take the application, take a big red magic marker and put a huge X on the application and write REFUSED. Put it in the prepaid envelope and mail it back. They have to pay the postage and pay someone to open that envelope. They dont send too many unsolicited offers after that.


"What if a desperate identity thief digging through your trash found a credit card application ripped into little pieces, taped it back together, filled it out and mailed it in? Would he get the credit card?

The answer, according to one man's experiment, is clearly yes.

Rob Cockerham is a credit card company's nightmare -- in this case, JP Morgan Chase & Co.'s nightmare. Armed with a roll of tape, a digital camera, a blog, a lot of irritation about those unsolicited credit card offers and a rapier wit, Cockerham set out to embarrass the company's credit card division about one month ago.

It was that mountain of credit card applications, so familiar to any adult American with a wallet, that drove Cockerham to perform his experiment.

"I get a heck of a lot of credit card applications in the mail," he writes. "I almost always tear them in half and throw them away. Sometimes, if I am feeling particularly paranoid, I'll tear them into little bitty pieces." But, he wonders in the blog, "Is that good enough?"

So he mimicked the steps an ID thief might take. He performed reconstructive surgery on a Chase MasterCard credit card application with Scotch tape. For good measure, he changed the address on the application, to see if Chase would mail the card directly to an identity thief. And he used his cell phone number, much like a criminal would. He documented it all, mailed it all in and wondered what would happen.

The answer -- and the punch line -- wasn't long in arriving. Cockerham's card was mailed to the new address, his father's house, on March 4, less than a month after the tattered application had been sent in.

"I still can't believe it came," Cockerham told MSNBC.com. "Crazy.""

[HurryKane]

Link for the story and/or the blog?


I always shred anything that comes into my house with my name and address on it unless I am keeping it for financial records. My poor shredder is about to die.

[HurryKane]

Never mind, I found the blog entry: http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/creditc ... tion.shtml

[Aslkahuna]

My shredder fills up rapidly as well and I even shred those plastic fake cards they attach to some of the apps. You should also shred old bank statements as well. Anything with personal info.

Steve

[senorpepr]

My shredder fills up rapidly as well and I even shred those plastic fake cards they attach to some of the apps. You should also shred old bank statements as well. Anything with personal info.

Steve

I agree. My shredder hardly gets a break as I shred anything that has my name on it. I just don't trust these fools out there.

[greeng13]

also i have noticed that many of these insurance companies and credit card companies have an "opt out" number in the small print at the very end so you can opt not to receive any offers (it is a national system that takes you out of the credit reporting agencies' databases to receive the "pre-screened" offers as they call them). it took some time but i barely ever get them now!!!

also if you call and tell them you are not interested and to lose your address it helps to as most of them have a 1-800 number to sign up...call that # and tell them "NO"...

it does take a bit of time out of your day but for me it seems to have worked pretty well