At 2:05 PM -0700 10/6/96, Steve Schear wrote: (quoting me)
(They already got access to the credit card databases, decades ago, of course.)
Are SSN and other ID required when opening a 'pre-paid' credit card account? That is, the ones for persons with poor credit who are required to maintain a balance sufficient to pay off the charges? Perhaps we could put our heads together and determine a way to become franchised by MC/VISA and offer 'affinity' type accounts with no address requirements (all statments are sent via remailer/nym email).
A couple of people on this list talked about a similar thing, a "Privacy Card," with the explicit policy of not reporting transactions in detail to the Big Three (the government-friendly TRW Credit, Equifax, and Transunion). The idea being that if a "market for privacy" exists, someone ought to be able to make a nice piece of change offering a card that protects privacy. One problem is that many people _want_ credit card transactions reported to the Big Three, to build up their credit record. (But many don't care. I've been using a VISA card issued by my stock broker for 12 years now. It's a "debit card," though it's handled by a merchant exactly as a credit card, and they probably can't see any difference. What I gathered when buying my current house, is that none of these transactions were part of my "credit history," as I was actually using a debit card. All of those now using, or planning to use, a debit card would be ideal candidates for a "Privacy Card.") Such a deal would have to be one of Visa, MasterCard, or Discover, with American Express a distant fourth. (I don't even know if these companies/tradenames would even allow such a thing, of course.) The cost of rolling out a brand new type of card would of course be prohibitively high. (I have no expectation than this will be done, and I think I said so at the time. Ever the realist, in some ways, I knew no one would take on such a complex project. Just as no one followed through with the "Cypherpunks Credit Union" idea, discussed at several meetings in 1993.) --Tim May "The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology." [NYT, 1996-10-02] We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."