-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- From: Brian Lane <blane@seanet.com>
I don't see why a debit card couldn't be anonymous, even to the point of having no name, AND no picture on it. Yes, the bank has the money, but their only obligation is to dish it out to the vendors/ATMs that you have used your card with. Why should a bank care who you are once they have your money in the account.
Again, it is unclear here whether you are proposing that you would be anonymous to the bank or just have a blank card. As I wrote, banks are required to get SS#'s for depositers right now, and I wouldn't expect that to change any time soon. If anything, the trend appears to be towards more tightening rather than less. Duncan and/or Sandy have suggested giving a fake SS# when you open your secured account; maybe that would be legal but it sounds questionable to me.
As to avoiding fraud with the card, is it really that huge of a problem? As long as noone copies the number(could go so far as no embossed number. Just a gloss black card with a hologram of a Bald Eagle on the front of it), and you don't lose the card how can someone use your account?
I used my VISA yesterday, and after swiping it through the now-ubiquitous card readers the vendor was required by the machine to manually enter the last four digits on the card. He complained that this was something new and was happening very frequently now (maybe a change with 1995?). I have heard of fraud where people make fake VISA cards (or steal them) and re-program the mag stripe to have a different number than what is on the front. Maybe this is a countermeasure for that. It doesn't sound like a blank card is the direction the industry is going. Does anyone have more info on this change? Hal -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQBVAwUBLwmNFBnMLJtOy9MBAQF4gAH7BgHuNzraGdAujkbnStXf9knBUYCKiJZv zodiYtbEFAKuuPUIT/aqyM1L7IPRbMuNMSW9hmel3k11g9ATHy+doA== =n71e -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----