How safe is my personal information? Can this credit card company come after me?
Relax. I doubt that you’re ever going to hear from these folks again. The reason they want your social security number when you sign up for a credit card, cellphone, rent an apartment etc. is so that they can run a credit check. Your “incomplete” application was just chucked in a trashcan. It’s not worth the company’s time and effort to pursue this any further. Personally, I’m not into signing up for credit cards at malls, pizza shops and such. People can be very careless and just leave your personal info around for all to see. Never mind situations like Blockbuster chucking old applications out on the curb for trash pickup or the Boston Globe sticking people personal info on papers attached to bundles of papers etc. I’m not shy about telling folks to be careful where they leave my personal info. In general, be careful signing up for credit cards. You can wind up in hock up to your eyeballs at exorbitant interest rates. Not all credit cards are created equal.
Relax. I doubt that you’re ever going to hear from these folks again. The reason they want your social security number when you sign up for a credit card, cellphone, rent an apartment etc. is so that they can run a credit check. Your “incomplete” application was just chucked in a trashcan. It’s not worth the company’s time and effort to pursue this any further. Personally, I’m not into signing up for credit cards at malls, pizza shops and such. People can be very careless and just leave your personal info around for all to see. Never mind situations like Blockbuster chucking old applications out on the curb for trash pickup or the Boston Globe sticking people personal info on papers attached to bundles of papers etc. I’m not shy about telling folks to be careful where they leave my personal info. In general, be careful signing up for credit cards. You can wind up in hock up to your eyeballs at exorbitant interest rates. Not all credit cards are created equal. And ALWAYS carefully read
In general, giving fake information *for the purpose of financial gain* is illegal. This is called fraud. Giving fake information without any intent to make a financial gain is not illegal. This is called politics. Or talk radio. One could argue that gaining free pizza is financial gain. However, my guess is that credit card companies who do these promotions get a lot of crap information from them, and don’t really care, they accept it as a cost of getting signups, just like the free pizza itself. Possibly if the name, address and SSN given on the application don’t match pre-existing credit records, they won’t send out any card at all. If they do send one out, don’t attempt to use the credit card and run out on the bill.
