Why you need a shredder

Via J-Walk Blog

An interesting experiment at cockeyed.com: The Torn-Up Credit Card Application.

I get a heck of a lot of credit card applications in the mail. A bunch for Visa, quite a few from Mastercard and tons of them from American Express.

I almost always tear them in half and throw them away. Sometimes, if I am feeling particularly paranoid, I'll tear them into little bitty pieces.

Is that good enough? Could a determined and dexterous criminal gather all the bits, tape them together and apply for a card in my name?

Yes he could.

Would a credit card company balk when confronted with an obviously resurrected application?

No it wouldn't. Not even when it requests the card to be sent to a different address.