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If you have good credit, and
many times, even if you don't, you are the
target market of some group of financial institutions. As a result, you
may often get "pre approved" offers for credit cards and other
kinds of loans in the mail.
You may think that if they're not
filled-out, they're useless to an identity thief -- so you toss them
into the trash.
How Did They Get My Name?
The credit card company that sent you the
pre approved offer, in most cases, doesn't even know who you are. They've
contracted with one of the big credit repositories (or a company working
with the repositories) for a bulk prescreen - a certain number of mailings to be made to
people with credit scores falling in a certain range.
Only when you respond do they find out who you are.
What if an Identity Thief Responds?
As it turns out, an identity thief digging
through your trash has nearly everything needed to get a credit
card, in your name, mailed to a different address. Take a look at
this pre-approved offer application form.
 Home
Address (If different from address at left)
The thief simply writes a different address and phone, making it
look like you've moved. Since the "former" address is correct
(it's the address to which the pre approved offer was sent) there will
still be enough address information for the credit check to go through.
Mother's
Maiden Name (for security purposes.)
The identity thief can enter any name
in this space without a problem. The credit card company is not asking this to
verify identity now. They want the mother's maiden name for future use, to verify
identity of the cardholder on future customer service calls.
Unfortunately, the future cardholder will be the identity thief, not you.
Social
Security #
The Social security number is probably the
only thing that would give an ID thief a real problem, if it were not
known. A correct social security number (with name and former address) are
probably going to be enough for the credit card issuer to verify credit,
and open an account.
Let's hope you didn't discard your
paycheck stub in the same dumpster!
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