Credit Cards: the bizarre and alarming

Credit Cards are a common place within society and like anything it has it's share of bizarre, alarming and scary stories........

When One or Two Cards are not Enough
• A Californian man managed to obtain a line of credit to the value $1.7 million via credit cards! And how many did he have - a staggering 1,497 valid credit cards! So many in fact that he made into the the Guinness Book of World Records who gave him the title Mr. Plastic Fantastic! View Entire Story

• Man orders orders replacement credit cards, gets 2,000 of them in the mail! - When a man ordered two replacement cards the company sent him 1000 cards all in his name, and after the company apologized for the error they sent him another 1000! View Entire Story

Let your Pet Take the Heat!
• A man from the San Francisco Bay Area was tired of getting spam e-mails, so he signed up for an e-mail account using the name Clifford J. Dog (Clifford is the name of his pet dog). Eventually, a pre-approved credit card application arrived addressed to Clifford J. Dog, and the man sent it in as a joke. "It asked for his mother's name. I put 'Pugsy Malone.' When it asked for a Social Security number, I put nine zeros, and I even put that this was for a dog and not to send a credit card," the man said. The credit card company issued Clifford J. Dog a card despite the obvious warning on the application, the man said. View Entire Story

• MESSIAH Campbell was considered a good enough credit risk to be given a card with a $4200 limit which was surprising considering he's a cat.
His Australian owner wanted to test the limits of her bank's identity screening process and applied for the Visa credit card on Messiah's behalf. She was amazed when it was approved. View Entire Story

OOOPS - We gave out your details!
• When recycling goes wrong - The Massachusetts newspaper Telegram & Gazette released the credit and debit card numbers of 240,000 subscribers due to a recycling program in which paper from the Telegram & Gazette's business office is reused to wrap bundles of newspapers. View Entire Story

• A security blunder at Newcastle City Council (UK) exposed the credit and debit card details of up to 54,000 people online. A security exercise found an encrypted file containing names, addresses, and credit and debit card numbers had been mistakenly placed on an insecure server. An internal investigation also revealed that the file with all the card details had been accessed and uploaded to a computer IP address registered in Israel. Newcastle City Council claims there is no indication of any fraud on the affected cards. View Entire Story

• Chain says intrusion may expose 4.2m cards; 1,800 fraud cases seen - A Supermarket chain said a breach of its computer system potentially exposed 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers of it's customers and has led to about 1,800 fraud cases to date. View Entire Story

• A photographer electronically published a photo of a Hurricane Katrina victim holding up her Red Cross debit card. "I don't know what I was thinking" said the photographer, who failed to obscure any of the card's digits, or expiration date in his photo. The victims balance reportedly dropped from $2000 to .45 cents in less than three minutes. View Entire Story

Oh - Those Fees!
• An Ohio man charged $3,200 on a new credit card in 2001 to help pay for his wedding. That put him $200 over his credit limit and into a riptide of penalty fees and interest rates. The man stated that he had paid the creditor $6,300 over six years, nearly double his initial debt. Despite that, he still had a balance of $4,400. Purchases: $3,200, Interest: $4,900, Late fees: $1,100, Over the limit fees: $1,500 - TOTAL: $10,700. View Entire Story

• A man from Puerto Rico made a late payment one month due to misplacing his bill. A simple oversight became a costly exercise. The bank charged a $39 late fee and dropped his interest-free grace period. Then it began charging interest, compounding daily, at a 24% annual rate. Ouch! View Entire Story

The World's Worst Credit Card
• Via the consumerist.com and from the terms and conditions - "Your initial Credit Limit will be $300.00 and you agree to pay the following fees, which will be billed to your Account and will appear on your first monthly Billing Statement: a one-time Account Processing Fee of $99.00, a one-time Program Participation Fee of $89.00, a monthly Account Maintenance Fee of $10.00 and an Annual Fee of $49.00. Your available credit after these charges will be $53.00 at Card issuance."

Originally submitted by: Sam Shaw