ABC News: Got Tape? You Can Steal an Identity

With all the identity theft going on in the country by illegal aliens, meth addicts, irresponsible teens and young adults, and others - you would think a would-be thief would have to be a little careful about the condition of those stolen credit card applications they send in.

Not so, it turns out.

Bob Cockerham tried out a little experiment.

Glenn A. Ruppel, ABC News:

He tore up a credit card application into tiny pieces, then reassembled all the scraps. Then he taped the whole thing back together. Next, Cockerham crossed out the address and wrote his parent's address instead.

You'd think no bank would accept this mess. But Cockerham sent it off just to make sure. He began documenting the process on his website, www.cockeyed.com and waited for the mailman.

The financial company the application was sent from was only too happy to approve the credit card application.

He filled in the application with a different address from where he lived - he wrote down the address where his parents live, not where he lived which is where the application was sent.

On top of that, the application had been torn up into little pieces - and then taped back together.

If those two things would not raise red flags, nothing would.

The article closes by repeating the well-worn tag line that you are not usually libel if thieves fraudulently use your credit card.

That would be heartening if that was the whole story.

But last week it was reported that 80 or 90 people had used the SSN of a California woman and run up huge debts under her usurped identity.

In fact, there was another story in the national news that she or another woman was stuck with one million dollars of debt run up by these miscreants. Worse, no public or private institution was giving her any help. Despite those claims/disclaimers, she was being left hung out to dry.

Moreover, last month there was a story of how over 25 million Americans had their SSN, DOB, and name identity information lost on a stolen laptop. The organization responsible for the loss did not offer to pay the pricey fee for credit-monitoring for even one year.

The full account (if you will pardon the pun) of this guy's credit card company experiment is documented on his cockeyed.com website.

Fortunately, for him, the person who sent in the ultra-suspicious credit card application in his name was him.

But what if it was not?

Tis a bit strange.

Technorati tags: crime, identitytheft, fraud