Mysterious Prepaid Debit Card Appears in Mail

Today, I was contacted by a concerned Zander client about a debit card that mysteriously appeared in the mail. The card came to her address and had her name printed on the card with a Visa logo and magnetic stripe, but she had never requested any such card or account to be opened.

This card came from one of the many financial services companies that sends out promotional offers in this manner. They obtain your information from one of their many “marketing partners” and send you a card with your name on it. To use the card, a consumer must activate it, load it with money, and provide identification verification at that time. In other words, until or unless you provide them with identification information they do not have anything other than your name, address and perhaps a phone number.Unfortunately, these offers rarely explain these details in such clear terms and instead appear to be a card you requested.

Most of these businesses will not share with you what company you do business with that they “partner” with for this offer. Perhaps to protect that company from complaints about this alarming promotion? In any case, this is a perfect example of why it is important each time you open a new account or sign up for a new service that you ask them about opting out of information sharing. Additionally, you may wish to call 888-5OPTOUT or visit www.optoutprescreen.com in order to cut down on “junk mail” credit card offers.