Comments on: Thank You For Managing Your Account Online; Here Are Twelve Paper Letters Containing Your Full Account Number

By: Market and Money Gloom And Doom @ The Roundup

Market and Money Gloom And Doom @ The Roundup — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 16:38:28 +0000

[...] Twelve Paper Letters Containing Your Account Number @ Punny Money [...]

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:06:36 +0000

Oh and one more thing. I have four high yield savings accounts at capital one (for different purposes). Even though I have selected no paper statements, I get paper statements ever month, in four separate envelopes. Not only that, but each envelope includes a return envelope. why? why are they sending me my statements with a return envelope. I cry for the trees.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:03:58 +0000

I am totally with you on this. Any time I make the slightest change on my online accounts, I get paper confirmations (even though I have selected email notification and billing for every single account). It drives me crazy.

By: Citicard Email Idiocy | I've Paid For This Twice Already...

Citicard Email Idiocy | I've Paid For This Twice Already... — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:12:44 +0000

[...] Not so with their email notifications. Invariably, about 4-5 days later, I get an email from Citicard stating I have a “pending payment”, dated the date I made the payment. The first time this happened, I got all confused and investigated and confirmed that yes, my payment was *not* pending, it had posted the date I made it, and the email was basically useless. At least it is just an email and not actual paper. [...]

By: The Friday Gathering for 11/9/2007 | Gather Little By Little

The Friday Gathering for 11/9/2007 | Gather Little By Little — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:23:15 +0000

[...] Punny Money - Thank You For Managing Your Account Online; Here Are Twelve Paper Letters Containing Your Full Accou… [...]

By: Lord

Lord — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:17:36 +0000

Yes, a physical letter is a powerful fraud detection device. Nuisance mailings are at least better than nuisance calls.

By: thisisbeth

thisisbeth — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:11:06 +0000

On one hand, the letters shouldn’t include your full account number.

On the other hand, my guess is that they send real mail about e-mail address change to confirm that there’s no fraud. If someone broke into your account and changed your e-mail address, you wouldn’t know about it. By sending you a letter, you could say, “Waitaminute! I didn’t change my e-mail address!” (Of course, they could send an e-mail to your old account, but what if the reason you changed your e-mail was because someone broke in there?)

But, there should be no full account numbers. Most of my mailings from credit cards say, “Your credit card ending in 1234…” Much more secure, because I can confirm which card they’re talking about, but a thief would only know four numbers.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:09:19 +0000

The credit card issuers are the morons.

By: Clever Dude

Clever Dude — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:44:57 +0000

but but but…I’m your neighbor. Eh, you can have the Victoria’s Secret catalog anyway. I don’t want it back after you’ve touched it

And who you calling “morons”? Your neighbors?

By: Mrs. Micah

Mrs. Micah — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:42:46 +0000

Kind of like those stupid “convenience checks” which give the chance for any mail thief to withdraw lots of money from your credit card. Whee!

By: dr.xnlb

dr.xnlb — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:51:04 +0000

I don’t even know where to begin with this. In fact, instead of going in full rant mode, I will just say this:

My day, I am an Internet Consultant (that is, I tell people how to build better web apps, and can sometimes be found coding the solutions myself too).

But I have begun to get really irritated with stupid online strategies, and have begun punishing those companies by firing them and finding new service providers. And when I do fire them, I make sure to lodge a complaint against whomever pulled this stunt, since they are obviously clueless about the internet and should be fired or transferred before they *really* start hurting the company.