In this article I’ll tell you about the hazards of unsolicited pre-approved credit card applications. It may be a surprise to you, but there are much more dangers and risks related to this type of credit cards than you can envision.
The thing is that it often happens that pre-approved credit card invitation is taken out of your mailbox by a thief. Unfortunately, it is often very simple for a thief to finish this credit card application and send it back, and in most cases this application will be approved. It is horrible, but someone might be having a credit registered on your name without you even knowing about it. This type of crime is called the identity crime.
The foregoing type of identity theft is a rather common one, but there are cases of much more sophisticated identity theft. A smart thief can order a redirection of your mail address in order to be able to maintain correspondence with the credit card company. But I am sure that you are much cleverer and will soon enough notice that the volume of your mail has decreased, and that you’ll contact the post center and find out whether somebody has ordered a redirection. Simply being observant allows revealing identity theft very swiftly.
One of the ways of preventing this type of crime is to address each credit card company you receive mail from and ask them directly to halt sending you their pre-approved credit card offers. If this doesn’t help, not to worry – there are consumer agencies which will swiftly handle this problem if you address them.
Of course your responsibility is less if you are able to prove that it is mot you who sent back the pre-approved credit card application, but in any case you will have to go through many procedures and experience a great deal of hassle. You’ll probably be suspected of sending this credit card application back on your own and just not willing to repay the credit card debt. But if your signature was forged, you can order and expertise which will definitely prove the fact of fraud. “Side effects” of this situation are numerous – spoiled mood and a great deal of wasted time, money, nerves and energy, and besides these events can affect your credit score. It is wise to hire a lawyer who will settle all the problematic issues.
Luckily each day credit card companies become more advanced and develop new ways of avoiding this risk. The pre-approved credit cards are becoming more and more rare. The only thing that prevents credit card companies to eliminate pre-approved credit card offers is that it is a great marketing tool in their hands. Every day new security measures appear, and we can hope that time will come when credit card identity theft will be fully eliminated and impossible.
The “recession” thing is really helping to clear the minds of average folks and massive financial grands. Maybe this is not the wind of change, but it really assists to make all the participants on the market of credit card applications to act accordingly.
But before you start to fill out credit card applications, please visit this credit card blog. There you’ll get useful tips about how to find the ideal credit card applications and avoid the numerous traps of this industry.
