GreenCrackBaby asks:
"My wife was at a mall about a year ago when she ran across one of those groups who were trying to sign people up for a Visa credit card. Since she didn't yet have a credit card, she decided she'd fill out the form. She had everything filled out and was ready to sign it when she noticed the draconian fine print that essentially promised that they would sell her personal data to anyone they could, so instead of signing the form she said 'no thanks' and tossed it in the garbage. That was a mistake she has been made to regret. Almost immediately SPAM to her university email address went from 0 to 20 a day, and has been slowly increasing since. Soon we started to receive a large number of telemarketing calls to our home (where before we had received almost none). Junk mail addressed to her went through the roof. It wasn't until the Visa card arrived addressed to her that we knew what had happened." It appears that someone fished this woman's application out of the garbage and submitted this anyways, without a signature. How is something like this even close to being legal?
"What has become clear is that someone selling those Visas fished her application out from the garbage and submitted it. We've managed to track down a copy of the form she had filled out, and in the signature area is a big 'N/A'. So now her personal information is being sold to every telemarketer, spammer, and junk mail shop in North America. What can she do? We'd like to sue the company who fished the application from the garbage and make a lesson out of them, but what is there to sue over? Is the loss of personal information even considered a tort?"
you could always (Score:5, Informative)
Now watch that get amrked redundant
Re:you could always (Score:2, Funny)
Re:you could always (Score:2)
I would have thought the answer given would be obvious
PrePaid Legal! (Score:2, Informative)
There is much more to it than that, but I don't want this to be TOO much of a blatant advertisement..
In a situation like this, you could simply call your attorney and they could give you real legal advice and coud even help you out without it costing you
Re:PrePaid Legal! (Score:3, Insightful)
Your redirect goes to prepaidlegal.com - known spammers.
According to groups.google.com [google.com] there are 200+ reports of their spam in the sightings newsgroup. The vast majority of spam isn't reported. Having that many reports is pretty convincing evidence. T
Ignore the Parent Comment (Score:5, Informative)
This is patently false, and following this advice could easily land you in jail for fraud. Because you didn't sign the form, you don't owe them anything for sending you the card, but if you use it, you are promising to conform to the cardholder agreement. If you claim after the fact that it's not valid because you never signed the form, you won't be held legally liable for the debt by the credit card company. The catch is that you presented the card to whoever you bought stuff from as a valid account, which it wasn't (and they can prove you did it on purpose because you know the cardholder contract isn't valid), thereby committing fraud for personal financial gain. Go directly to jail, and end up paying the merchant for the stuff directly anyway.
I say again, ignore this advice. It's criminal.
Virg
Dumbass. (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright Infringement != Theft.
Say it again, and pay attention this time.
Copyright Infringement != Theft.
Copyright infringement is a civil tort. Theft is a criminal offense. They're very, very different. No matter what some asshat from the RIAA or MPAA says.
--grendel drago
Not good enough... (Score:3, Interesting)
I don
Re:More satisfying solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Hate to break it to you, but a mall is not a public place...it is not "commons". It is private property owned by some corporation and so your "rights" don't apply there! They would likely get the mall security to toss you out (if they didn't charge you with something first). Think about that for a minute...we as a society have exchanged our "commons" and all the activities that were fought for by our forefathers (free speech
Your wife made it public (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:2, Informative)
My policy is to always remove and carry, ATM receipts, credit card slips and anything else with personal information. The stuff gets shredded and burned when I get home.
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:2)
She *did* get the credit card.
Re: application needing signing? (Score:3, Interesting)
A (now defunct) credit card company, NextCard, issued my wife a VISA card via the Internet, based on some spam email she got that basically said "You have a pre-approved card waiting for you, if you just click this link to visit our web site and tell us where to mail it."
She did so (never actually signing anything), and got the card. She proceeded to
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:3, Informative)
It is for this reason that she SHOULD NOT CHARGE anything to the card. Doing so implies acceptance of the card and terms & conditions. (Most of the card agreements even say as much.)
Unfortunately, as many earlier posters have pointed
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:2, Interesting)
Probably not much you can do about it though without paying tons in lawyer fees. Sure would be nice if there was some hefty jail time for the person who did this. Putting the companies involved under a microscope for a long time would not be a bad idea either.
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:2)
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:2)
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:2)
What makes you think the application didn't have a signature by the time the bank received it? If someone picks an unsigned application form from the garbage, the logical thing to do would be to sign it before submitting.
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:2)
On no! We have a case of grand theft trash!
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:2)
Re:Your wife made it public (Score:2, Informative)
That should be worth a couple of million (Score:2)
Michael
No wonder there are such abuses (Score:2, Insightful)
Why didn't she rip up the application? Or write void on it? Atleast then she could go back and say 'I didn't sign anything, prove it'
Re:No wonder there are such abuses (Score:2)
Re:No wonder there are such abuses (Score:2, Insightful)
Someone reading your personal information from something you throw away is your problem, if you're careless enough to do so, but to actually remove her form from the garbage and sign her up for the VISA card without her permission is illegal enough, let alone actually going through the process of selling her personal information as they would have done if she had agreed to it...
Re:No wonder there are such abuses (Score:2)
Re:No wonder there are such abuses (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No wonder there are such abuses (Score:2)
Why as a society should we consider those complicit who innocently leave their doors unlocked or their keys in the ignition? Our full venom should be directed toward people who illegally take advantage of others, not people who are naive and trusting.
Re:No wonder there are such abuses (Score:2)
If we had a hampster it would never be without bedding.
IAINWAL (Score:5, Insightful)
If it isn't illegal, which I can't fathom, it certainly should be.
Re:IAINWAL (Score:2)
I'd persue that angle.
Re:IAINWAL (Score:2)
It isn't (Score:4, Insightful)
But the submittal of the form for a credit-card is another matter. It indicates someone forged her signature (even if the signature doesn't look anything like your wife's sig) and submitted the form, or someone accepted the form without a signature. Both could lead people in serious trouble with the law.
Re:It isn't (Score:4, Funny)
>especially for one Mr Void.
If he becomes a celebrity, does that make him a void * ?
Re:It isn't (Score:2)
Paper Shredders (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do groups go dumpster diving?
Never throw out paper that has information on you that you do not want to get out. Plus tearing up the form would have felt good at the time. It is not legal because the form needed a signature. The company should have the form stored you might be able to request it as evidence in a suit but you need to talk to lawyer.
I think importantly people need to look at what happened here and realise, do not trust the law to protect you, in most cases the law needs to be broken before it can be used, and the deterents in this case are small compared to the profit. So protect yourselve with the best practices that you can. Don't throw out paper information unless you have torn it up, burnt it or shredded or are safe with it being found at the tip, dump, skip, bin, etc.
Re:Paper Shredders (Score:2)
Doesn't matter anymore though. Once your spam cherry gets popped there ain't no going back. It's all downhill from here. Once one of my accounts start to get spam I abandon it forever.
It can't be legal (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately you may have trouble doing anything about it at this point. Remember back when credit card slips used little pieces of carbon paper? I remember some customers demanding the carbons to carry home with them, or asking me to rip them up before discarding. And that was just a name attached to a number. Your wife probably left her SSN, address, phone number, etc. on that form.
IANAL but your first priority is to get a credit report and see if a card has been issued in your wife's name. Second, get ahold of this company (by the neck) and demand that your wife's name comes out of the files.
Might not be a waste if... (Score:2)
It might not be a complete waste of time if they live in a state with an anti-SPAM law. Just name the CC company as a co-defendant on your next spam lawsuit... After all,
It Could Have been worse. (Score:5, Informative)
That person was most likely the person who was trying to get her to sign up in the first place. They recieve a commission for each application, sometimes up to 50$ a piece. And since the application was submitted through them without an authorized signature, it's called Fraud. That's criminal. People have filed civil suits for less though. Give it a try.
The most important lesson here is that she probably had her social security number on that form, and should have taken it home with her instead of leaving her personal information in a public place. Someone with whose agenda wasn't limited to making a few extra bucks could have used the info to steal her identity.
Re:It Could Have been worse. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It Could Have been worse. (Score:2)
I really don't see anything fraudulent here. Unethical and slimy, yes, but not fraudulent. The CC company can give you a credit card; you don't have to accept it. Now if you tried to get a credit card by giving them bad info, then you might be charged with fraud.
IOW, if I walk up to you and say "here, take my car. It's almost paid off." I'm not committing fraud; I'm offering you a gift with strings att
Re:It Could Have been worse. (Score:2)
That does seems absurdly high. Perhaps this card had a high annual fee and the company would make recoup the commission within a year. Maybe a $50 commission was only paid if certain criteria were met, such the card being used within a month of signing up. There's no way that someone who only gets two applications per hour would be worth $100/hr. The $1-2 per application sounds much more plausible.
Re:It Could Have been worse. (Score:2, Informative)
See a lawyer. (Score:5, Informative)
However, this does bring to mind some things people should do to protect themselves from information fraud:
Re:See a lawyer. (Score:3, Insightful)
However some of this advice may not be practical, For example there may be cases where you have to rent a car for some reason. (say you are out of town or need to move and want a van).
You have to consider the "cost" in terms of loss of privacy vs the benifit to you life. I do buy stuff online, but limit where I buy it. You may want to get a mail alias somewhere t
Re:See a lawyer. (Score:2, Funny)
* Don't rent cars or purchase cell phones.
Don't forget:
Wear a tin-foil hat at all times, this prevents their mind control rays from reaching you.
Avoid leaving your house for prolonged periods of time and always ensure a hidden surveillence camera is running while you're gone. That's when THEY will come and install bugs to easedrop on you.
Never eat the blue M&Ms. Just trust me on this one.. let's just say blue == best mind control wavelength. I can't say anymore.. they'
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Realism (Score:2)
This isn't paranoia. It's not about some vast government conspiracy, it's not about aliens, it's not about anything unlikely. It's about a very, very common cri
Umm... Yea... (Score:2)
Or it could be that some other factor, like you buying a DNS registration, happened about the same time.
The only other alternative is to believe that some minimum wage-slave who spends all day pestering people with clipboards nefariously dug her info out of the trash, forged her signature, and submitted it against her will. I seriously doubt on
Well... (Score:2)
Re:Umm... Yea... (Score:2)
Your wife lied to you about throwing the form away.
Re:Umm... Yea... Possible motive... (Score:2)
of course it's not legal.. (Score:2)
however, you might just be screwed, most likely they don't have any means to retrieve the information and mark it as "don't use this anymore". but look at it brightly, at least she got her visa? i wouldn't really have been surprised if they had just sent her some adverts to places where she could apply for one.. however if you do by some freak accident find out who sent the form then sue/report to officials/ask for investigation
At the very least... (Score:5, Informative)
I would have to assume that if there is a disclaimer that Visa can sell the information, there would have to be a disclaimer saying they are not liable for the information's use once it is sold. However, if the actual volume is coming in like it is, an easier route would be harrassment class action suits against benefitting parties. Their information was gained illegally, and they are liable for that. So both Visa and the Spam companies could get burned bad, if this is pressed. The person who took the application could be held responsible as well, since they accepted and processed an application without proper verification of identity.
The fact that the person got a credit card is inconsequential, or that no one else took the information is just lucky. It would have been pretty easy to just copy it to a new application and change the address.
In Europe this would be clearly illegal (Score:3, Interesting)
The company could be fined, and the directors could go to jail.
Then again, in the UK companies used to be required to provide a "please don't sell my personal data" check box ("opt-out"). I'm not sure whether this is still legal, or whether the European law has tightened this so it has to be a "please *DO* sell my personal data" check box ("opt-in"). So she would have been able to apply without getting spam.
#include "disclaimer/IANAL.h"
Re:In Europe this would be clearly illegal (Score:2)
In the UK it already is as it breaches Data Protection legislation going back to the 80s. Even before considering the sale of the data, simply collecting the data without consent is an offence in its own right.
To stay the right side of the law, data users have to follow the Data Protection Principles [dataprotection.gov.uk] which are a high-level summary of the law.
As well as the basic penalties of fines and jail for directors, the Information Commissioner can walk into any company and turn off their databases on simple susp
Re:In Europe this would be clearly illegal (Score:2)
Re:In Europe this would be clearly illegal (Score:2)
Under the UK Data Protection Act they have to have a check box with something like "Please do not share my information with other organisations or use it for other purpoises than it was collected." and if they fail to honour it can get royally shafted in court. For certain sorts of data which are considered highly confidential (e.g. medical information) they have to have a checkbox with something like "Please do share my information..." and cannot share the information unless you check the box (often sign
Similar thing happened to my brother, but no form (Score:4, Interesting)
Stuff like this makes you doubt the quality of our judgment when we put high tech into hands of the masses. Like handing a gun to a baby.
Re:Similar thing happened to my brother, but no fo (Score:2)
Re:Similar thing happened to my brother, but no fo (Score:2)
data protection law (Score:2)
Yes, I'm a lawyer . . . (Score:5, Informative)
Some of the aspects of this story sound legally questionable. For example, a credit card company's acceptance of an unsigned credit card application, in general. But also, since there was no signature, your wife (although extremely careless and naive for throwing her personal information in a public trash can) never consented to the "fine print" which was the ostensible hook for the company to distribute her info to spammers, telemarketers, other vermin. True, if someone fished her info out of the trash and used it for spamming, she might not have much of a remedy - although some states have put anti-spamming laws into effect, they typically only give a remedy against the spammer, and they make themselves hard to find and identify - who do you sue? But it sounds, from your account, like you can prove the unsigned application was actually submitted to VISA, and may be able to prove that VISA sold her info to the pond scum with knowledge that she had not consented. If that were so, you might have some kind of remedy against VISA or the bank that issued the VISA. If you are in a jurisdiction like California which has a privacy right incorporated in its state constitution, your position might be even stronger.
I would recommend consulting a lawyer who is licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. If you don't know a lawyer, try contacting law schools in your area or your State Bar Association to ask if there are any referral services they would recommend to look at a case of potential privacy violation. This is better than picking up the phone book at random.
Re:Yes, I'm a lawyer . . . (Score:2)
Something tells me... (Score:2)
I would be willing to bet that the little detail omitted is that she actually did sign the contract before noticing the fine print and tossing it in the trash. It's sad that the people would sink so low as to fish it out, but that would be entirely legal if it did in fact have her signature on it.
At least I'd believe that over a credit card marketing company risking MAJOR lawsuit (forgery, fraud).
Re:Something tells me... (Score:2)
I'm sure it's not company policy to fish out applications; it's probably a case of a minimum wage employee trying to meet some incentive. "Get 100 applications today and get an extra $50", or a free duffle bag, or movie tickets, or whatever. I could see someone forging a signature in that situation.
Re:Something tells me... (Score:2)
Also, you seem to be pretty naive about credit card companies. There have been several major nationwide lawsuits against banks and credit card comp
Simple forgery / no contract (Score:2, Informative)
The forgery might well require the testimony of a questioned documents examiner, but the forger is liable for damages.
The legal matter is
Worried about all the wrong things eh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's what I would do ...
And please people, if you dont shred
Legal advice from slashdot... (Score:2, Insightful)
Lots of people have said ask a lawyer. Yeah, do that, if you know any lawyers who aren't already so sick of giving you free legal advice that they got caller ID s
This happened to me. (Score:5, Interesting)
Same scenario, I applied for a credit card at one of those folding table operations where they have some crappy t-shirt or something that they'll give you for filling out applications. Anyhow, I needed a card, so I filled out an application for one of the three cards that this table was offering. They pushed me and asked that I apply for all 3 but I declined, saying that I only wanted one card, and didn't need three.
I went on my way and a couple of weeks later, I get all 3 of the cards in the mail. This pissed me off more than a little, as I am sure that there must be more than one law against falsifying financial documents.
I placed calls to the customer service numbers at the two cards that I had not applied for and told them my story. In both cases I was fed a line about the applications being un-trackable.
Now, this may or may not have been true, but the real information that I took away from the experience is that the companies didn't care about this kind of behavior. Disappointing, but you have to look at the angle - how will caring about this make them any money?
The people that run these tables are paid per application. If they are not made accountable for this kind of thing, why wouldn't they do it?
So good luck, but personally I'd just get a good spam filter and be glad that it was just false submission of your data and not identity theft or something like that.
Who can I sue for stupidity? (Score:2)
And you want to sue *them* ?
I am terribly sorry to be cynical about this, but what did you expect? Honesty and ethics? From someone who is paid solely by the amount of personal data they succeed in gathering? It may not
This is America! (Score:2)
My story (Score:4, Interesting)
I did the following: wrote, in large black marker across the application, "DO NOT SEND ME MORE OFFERS". Nothing else. Crossed out the entire application.
A few weeks later, I get the credit card in the mail.
I asked them for a copy of my application; but all I got was a printout of the database record, which had the same information (name, address) that was there on the original application.
Even without my signature, they accepted the application and sent me the credit card.
There's _got_ to be some law against this.
Don't Even Think About It (Score:2)
This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there i
Happened to me- (Score:2)
The only way I found out about the card (which had been sent to my old college address, where I no longer was) was went I went to get a car loan and they asked about a maxed out credit card.
It took a lawyer and a lot of time and effort (mostly on the lawyers part) to clear that mess up, but it impacted me greatly during the process.
There was talk of a lawsuit, but the lawyer advised against it (he wasn't
Lesson learned (Score:2)
Your wife did something rather silly, and some scum-sucking salesman looking for a $50 commission took advantage of her lapse in judgement.
Instead of making an ass out of yourselves and the wasting the courts time with a lawsuit, maybe you should close the account (assuming that you called them before activating it) and ask to be removed from marketing lists.
You haven't suffered any damages other than receiving spam -- which may have nothing to
I used to work in credit (Score:5, Informative)
The short of the matter is that they have probably pulled a copy of your wifes credit bureau report in order to issue the card. Since she did not sign the application, which they would have had to have forged, she did not give consent to have her credit report pulled.
Reference the FCRA [ftc.gov] (Fair Credit Reporting Act) 15 U.S.C. 1681. In particular reference 604 Permissible purposes of consumer reports [15 U.S.C. 1681b]. They have used the report in a manner not permissable.
The crux of the matter is that you may sue them for violating the FCRA. Reference 616 Civil liability for willful noncompliance [15 U.S.C. 1681n]. Since they forged her signature, they have wilfully broken this law.
You can also nail their ass with this:
The same thing happened to me! (Score:2)
Re:Really? Somehow I doubt it. (Score:2)
Re:Really? Somehow I doubt it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Always a doubter, one in every crowd.
"Spammers have no trouble trolling the web for millions of addresses - why would they buy them from a credit card company?"
They don't buy them from THE credit card company they buy them from the information collector. Addresses off of credit card applications are especially useful and valuable to spammers for the following reasons.
1) The are most likely real AND their personal email addresses as opposed to generic spam d
Re:Really? Somehow I doubt it. (Score:2)
This article is only two paragraphs long (no link to another article) but it looks like you haven't taken the time to read it. The second paragraph says: "We've managed to track down a copy of the form she had filled out, and in the signature area is a big 'N/A'." So if they managed to get a copy of the form, then it must have been fished out of the
Re:Really? Somehow I doubt it. (Score:2)
Your last sentence sums it up. Even if he wasn't just drawing ridiculous conclusions, there is no way he could present this rather tenuous connection in a court and
Re:Use the card (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Use the card (Score:5, Informative)
you have to ACTIVATE it. Usually by calling a phone number and talking to a person (Platinum cards) I dont know about the lesser cards... some might simply use a automated system.
activating the card is your acceptance of the terms.
and dont think for a minute that a credit company can't easily outspend you and your entire family in court just for the fun of it.
Remember these companies use the most innacurate and insecure database in the world to make decisions on you... your credit report.
Don't do something stupid like use the card if you dont want to pay it back.
Re:Use the card (Score:2)
NOT TRUE.
It may very by company, but when I worked for MBNA, one of the largest credit card companies, we read them the terms over the phone and they accepted them over the phone.
The activation is merely a security measure in case the card gets swiped, because you have to call from a home phone number registered with the company, and provide personal information....
However, after thirty days the card was activated anyway, because the assumption was th
Re:Use the card (Score:2)
If she spends money with the card, courts see that as accepting the terms of the agreement. Quite rightly too I might ad, she spent money with the card. If someone else got the card and spent money with it, that is fraud.
So somehow you need to figgure out how to get them to send a card in her name to someone else without you knowing about it who will spend money.
By spending money and then challenging it in court you will accrue interest charges, typically at a very high rate that you will also owe. And
Re:Use the card (Score:2)
However, if she gave the card to the nearest lowlife?
Re:only the card bit (Score:2)
In Arizona, a trash can (the ones you put out on the street, not sure about the ones inside of malls and the like) are all owned by the city and thus the contents (your neighbors trash) belongs to the city.
Digging through your neighbors trash is considered theft of Government Property, which can be prosecuted as a felony (depending on the value of said trash).
Dumpsters fall into the same category. Most likely because
Re:Sorry (Score:2)
I do too, but for a different reason. Your wife's lack of diligence with personal financial data and other private information has only caused some minor inconveniences. That might not be a severe enough "penalty" for her to learn her lesson and next time it might result in actual identity theft and serious financial loss on your part.
Re:Sorry (Score:2)
Probably not good enough either. With your bank routing number and account number it seems like they could just do an electronic funds transfer anyway. At least, that's all Sprint PCS or any of my credit card companies needed to setup an online recurring payment.
Re:Simple answer to one question: (Score:2)
Re:It's far from legal (Score:2)
Grab.
Re:Yes (Score:2)
you'd be amazed at the amounts of data that is retained in credit related transactions. i wouldn't be surprised if the credit issuer had on "file" (images) of both the application and the credit report they used to determine worthyness.
Re:What an.. (Score:2)
Re:I propose a solution (Score:2)
>And this got modded UP? This is -1 Dumbass at best.
At the time of writing, it hadn't been moderated either way, Scarecrow.
>Speaking as someone who just got their credit rating halfway decent again [...]
I'm glad to hear that you're not as big a cretin as you used to be.
Say, did you ever notice the correlation between people that can't calculate compound interest and those with no sense of humour? The connection becomes more apparent to me every day.
Re:Get Even with the SPAMMERs (Score:2)
Anybody remember (or l33t3r than me and able to just come up with it on his or her own) what that command line entry would happen to be?