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.

shred shred shred

[Luyseyal (3154)]

I always shred this kind of thing.
-l

Re:shred shred shred

[Skater (41976)]

In the US, you can now use a phone number (it's something like 1-888-3OptOut) to opt out of the prescreened credit card offers. I did so several weeks back and the offers have slowed to a trickle.

I do kind of miss shredding the fake AmEx cards that came with their offers, though.

Re:shred shred shred

[johnkoer (163434)]

The FTC has an alert [ftc.gov] that gives you a few options, including the phone # to call for opting out.

Pre-approved applications

[Beryllium Sphere(tm) (193358)]

>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.

Re:shred shred shred

[nizo (81281)]

I solved this problem by having credit that is so bad, people literally laugh at me when I apply for a card. The weird part is I still get these offers in the mail; I still think it is a ploy by the credit card companies to give their employees a good laugh now and then.

Re:shred shred shred

[bnenning (58349)]

Several years ago when I had no credit record I applied for a Discover card. On the same day a few weeks later, I received two pieces of mail: a rejection of my application due to insufficient history, and a offer to sign up for a Discover card.

Re:shred shred shred

[smooth wombat (796938)]

If for some reason you're fire averse a pair of scissors properly applied for about 10 seconds will prove sufficient to defeat the roll of tape.

You'd think so, wouldn't you. However, you might want to read this story [edwardjayepstein.com] about the Iranian students in 1979.

First three sentences of the fourth paragraph:

This was the situation up until November 1979 when Iranian students seized an entire archive of CIA and State Department documents, which represented one of the most extensive losses of secret data in the history of any modern intelligence service. Even though many of these documents were shredded into thin strips before the Embassy, and CIA base, was surrendered, the Iranians managed to piece them back together. They were then published in 1982 in 54 volumes under the title "Documents From the U.S. Espionage Den", and are sold in the United States for $246.50.

This particular story didn't say so but I read elsewhere that the students laid out the shredded documents on the floor of gymnasiums and pieced the documents back together.

Possible? Yeah, but highly improbable

[defile (1059)]

"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:Possible? Yeah, but highly improbable

[paeanblack (191171)]

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

Re:Possible? Yeah, but highly improbable

[Deagol (323173)]

I send most junk mail solicitations back to the sender in their own return envelope. If they send those neat colorful stickers, I stick a few of those on the envelope's outside border for good measure. So you have an over-stuffed envelope with stickers to gum up the machines.

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. :)

Re:Possible? Yeah, but highly improbable

[Fulcrum of Evil (560260)]

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.

Re:Possible? Yeah, but highly improbable

[StikyPad (445176)]

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.

Re:Possible? Yeah, but highly improbable

[thparker (717240)]

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.

I'd guess yes, at no point in the process does a human see it.

Here's one vendor -- OPEX [opex.com]. This one does opening and extraction [opex.com] 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.

Re:Possible? Yeah, but highly improbable

[HogGeek (456673)]

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...

Solution!

[wiggles (30088)]

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.

Re:Solution!

[garcia (6573)]

One of these days, a thief is going to raid my mailbox before I get home and get a credit card in my name.

Last summer I had a notice in my mailbox from the Postmaster that stated there were reports of mail theft in our neighborhood and that we should be watching closely for ID theft.

My wife is concerned with throwing mail away and the thieves getting it there. Why would they bother to go through my trash and get dirty when they can get it fresh from my mailbox w/no one the wiser.

The basis: Where Credit Comes From

[dada21 (163177)]

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.

A Simple Way To Prevent This!

[daknapp (156051)]

they'll accept any application as long as the name and social security number match their lookups, and your FICO score is reasonably high

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!

Pimply faced kids

[rueger (210566)]

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.

Make the banks liable...

[John Whitley (6067)]

Once again, I like Bruce Schneier's proposed solution:

The bank must be made responsible, regardless of what the user does.

That quote is from Mitigating identity theft [com.com], which provides a refreshing perspective on the problems collectively labelled as identity theft. Bruce points out that many of the "solutions" to identity theft focus on authentication, which misses a critical part of the equation: the fradulent transaction itself. By providing a strong financial incentive to banks to mitigate fraud, the only party which has a real chance to do anything about the problem will fix it and fast.

Stop them at the source

[klossner (733867)]

Better than a shredder, ask the banks to stop sending you the applications in the first place: http://www.optoutprescreen.com/ [optoutprescreen.com]. I used to receive several per month, now I get two per year.

Re:Stop them at the source

[by Anonymous Coward]

For those concerned about the site (https://www.optoutprescreen.com/ [optoutprescreen.com] the FTC links right to them: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/prescre en.htm [ftc.gov]

Re:Uhoh.

[Rob T Firefly (844560)]

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.

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

[Weaselmancer (533834)]

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 (532027)]

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.