My wife has a VISA credit card in her initials and maiden name. All Wells Fargo has is an untraceable PO Box in another town. No e-mail address. No telephone number.
However, each time a new credit card arrives, this message is pasted across the front:
IMPORTANT
You MUST activate your card NOW to begin using your
card. CALL 1-866-537-8424 from your home phone.
Why do they insist she call from our home phone? To capture the number, of course. (There is also an option to activate the card by going to the bank's website but this would involve giving them her e-mail address and revealing her IP address--both a no-no)
So what's a person to do? Why, call from some other phone, of course. But do not use the telephone of any friend or relative because you do not want Wells Fargo to think you live there either, right? The easiest remedy--and one we use--is to wait until our next trip. Then we call Wells Fargo from our hotel room and thus activate the card.
Labels: activating a credit card, Anonymous telephone number, banking privacy, credit card privacy
Privacy blog post by JJ Luna at 12:09 AM
