Unsolicited Credit Cards Can be a Sign of Identity Theft
Jul 18
Recently a friend was concerned about her credit after several new credit cards arrived in the mail. The credit cards were for various companies and the consumer had never applied for any of them. Unfortunately, this happens quite a bit.
Credit cards arriving in the mail are a red flag that your identity has been stolen. With credit monitoring and identity protection, the consumer would have received an alert that applications for the cards were submitted to the credit reporting agencies. Unfortunately in this instance, the consumer did not have credit monitoring. By the time the cards arrived in the mail, a lot of damage had already been done.
Identity thieves can rack up huge bills on newly opened accounts before the cards ever even arrive to you. Sometimes the cards can be opened in-store and used immediately. Other times, a store will issue you a temporary card number that can be used until your actual card arrives.
The gap in time is why credit and identity monitoring works in this case. While it is very difficult – if not impossible – to prevent identity theft altogether, you can greatly reduce the impact of the crime simply by monitoring your credit regularly
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Aug 29 at 14:42
You risk having your identity stolen when you receive unsolicited pre-approved credit card offers. Most mailboxes are fairly easy to break into and you might not even realize any of your mail is missing. If an identity thief steals a pre-approved credit card offer from your mailbox, he can easily complete the information and mail it back to the company under your name. If you have a good credit rating, the credit card application is very likely to be approved. You would never know someone has a credit card in your name until a problem occurs.
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Becky Reply:
August 30th, 2011 at 9:13 am
Too true! Thank you for the feedback.
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Sep 29 at 05:29
Very significant post
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Becky Reply:
September 29th, 2011 at 9:50 am
Thanks for reading.
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Nov 12 at 12:47
Might be the best piece of writing I have read!!
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Feb 04 at 22:53
You couldn’t be more on the money!
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