Wed, 15 Mar 2006

Torn-up Credit Card Apps Not So Safe

What in the world are the credit card companies thinking here, anyway? This is a pretty obvious breach of physical, not digital security, and should be treated as such. That is, if somebody's identity gets ripped off this way, the credit card company should be fully liable for damages - including "mental anguish".

A much as I think our tort system is out of control in this country, I've gotta admit that a couple of suits like that would go a long way towards stopping the practice of sending mass mailing credit card offers. And in todays world of identity theft and digital rip offs, that probably wouldn't be a bad thing at all.

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.

(link) [Slashdot]

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