Jim Hart>
Duncan Frissel:
The many people who have gotten anonymous Visa and Mastercard credit cards for example have used the simple scheme of applying for a secured credit card in a nome de guerre.
How is this simple? A credit card company sure as hell wants to known who you truly are and where you truly live. It must be able to collect its debt and mark your credit rating. Applying for a credit card with false name or Social Security number is fraud, with heavy punishments. Or are there, yet again, numerous details you are neglecting to mention?
I called Dave Lovejoy, a longtime credit manager and currently product line manager for Data Rental's line of credit retrieval terminals. He confirmed for me what I had always understood; with _secured_ credit cards, no one really cares who you are, as you have secured your card with a cash deposit (typically 110% of your limit) and collection is no problem. I have no idea as to the legalities of all this. BTW Data Rentals is one of the major suppliers of credit retrieval equipment to credit grantors, marketing towards the small-to-medium sized operations (that is, those who don't buy their reports directly from the bureaus on tape.) I wrote the software for their DRS-2000 automated credit terminal, as well as their credit cartridge for the TI 700 printing terminal. JJH --