Buy a shredder. And USE it!

[thewayne]

This guy received a credit card application in the mail. He tore it up into little pieces. Then he taped it back together. Filled it out, changed the address, changed the phone number, and sent it in.

The address he changed it to was his parent's, who had a secure mailbox, and the phone number he changed it to was his cell.

A couple of weeks later he got the card and had no problem activating it.

http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/creditcard/application.shtml

Comments

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted to go to Chase (where I have my business account and my car loan) and give them hell for risking their money (i.e. my money) in such a clearly fraudulent way. This should be on 60 Minutes.

And yes, I have a shredder. And yes, I use it.

Back when I did NOT have a shredder? I'd tear things in little pieces and distribute them among several different waste baskets. Since I don't empty waste paper baskets all at the same time -- the one in my office goes weeks, and the one in the guest bedroom goes months -- I figure the pieces were in sufficient different parts of the ultimate landfill that no one was going to piece the parts together again.

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm also glad to know there's someone else out there who came to the same solution! :)

[donkey-hokey.livejournal.com]

Approximately 8 years ago I dealt with a minor incident of id theft. At the time I was using one of those ever-so-convenient bank ATM cards that behaves just like a credit card. Some asshat got hold of the number. I suspect it was an employee at a local grocery store. I was *ahem* between jobs at the time. I didn't find out what had happened until I went to the bank to deposit my unemployment pittance. After the check was deposited, I was informed I had negative money in my account. Somebody was using my account to set up Cricket cellphone accounts.

Anyway, I got it straightened out and my money back reasonably quickly. I closed my account, opened a new one at a credit union, and got one of the old-style ATM cards. I will never go back to using one of those bank "credit" ATM cards. If I can't get a new "old-fashioned" ATM card when this one expires, I'll write checks or use cash instead.

Since then, I've become even more anal about using my shredder (crosscut, of course). Nothing gets tossed (even junk mail) with my name and address on it. With most junk mail, I generally just take my name off and toss the rest. Credit card apps get completely shredded - I don't know what info is mass produced and what is "just for me", apart from my name.

This reminds me, I need to shred the rather large accumulated pile of stuff.

[deborak]

We do have a shredder and Bill uses it. IMO, the amount of protection this actually buys you when your information is exposed in so many more venues than your trash can is practically negligable. Compulsive shredding just strikes me as busywork motivated by fear, but then I'm rather comfortable with chaos.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

There's definitely a lot of variables. We don't have home delivery of mail, it all goes into a box at the post office. Theoretically we are the only ones who could get such things, so if we shredded it consistently, we should be pretty safe.

But you're right, your information can be compromised in so many ways that it's very difficult to be confident that your info is safe. I really need to start exploiting the free credit reports. With having two people, we can get one of our credit reports every two months. I should put that into my Palm Pilot.


Honestly though, I love shredding things! A nice visceral joy at listening to it chewing the hell out of things!

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to ask Russet but I keep forgetting: what does your icon mean? :-)

[deborak]

Closest possible translation of "All Your Base Are Belong To Us."

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Cool!