So I get a credit card in the mail last month. Not unsolicited, I applied for the dang thing.
I go to sign up for online goodies, and it tells me that I can’t. I call the number, and they tell me to wait an indeterminate amount of time. Ok, whatever.
I get my bill in the mail this month, and want to go online to pay it. Which shouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that I still can’t get in. I call Chae (name edited to preserve anonymity), and get asked what card number I’m typing in.
I respond "*** **** **** ".
“Ok, and what SS#?”
Me: "-**-"
“I’m sorry, repeat that please?”
Me: "-**-bloodyfreakingg-d!!!"
“…that doesn’t match what we have here.”
So I get transferred to the Fraud dept, where I’m questioned about my mother, about our 2 previous addresses, about where I go to school, about any balance transfers I may have done.
“Ok, Mr. Donkey, we’ve changed your SS# in the computer.”
Now, tell, me guys. I got a credit card, and apparently didn’t have the right SS# in the computer. If Cha*e doesn’t know my SS#, how did they approve me for a card to begin with?
I’ll give you a hint. It’s not number 1.
And by moving the asterisk, you revealed the name of the company.
Stuff happens. Some years back, I transposed two digits of my daughter’s SS# on our tax form. Naturally, I got a nice letter back from the IRS. And just as naturally, it seems I’d been transposing it for some time - I had to go back and do a lot of correcting. Fortunately, it was all straightened out before she entered the workforce.
My point is, and I do have a point, maybe someone at the evil credit card company had a finger fart when doing data entry. It’s an imperfect world - screws fall out. (I love quoting that line.)
Look on the bright side. It’s perfectly possible that whoever owns whatever SSN they did have in their system had excellent credit, and you now have a $100,000 limit.
Buy a Corvette and flee the country!
Ok. First, what happenned to you is wholly unacceptable from a security, fraud and loss prevention perspective. Chase needs to rethink their whole card-issuing process to introduce better safeguards.
Second, your credit report can be pulled without your social security number.
Some software packages used for this kind of thing will just take a name and state and give all likely matches with ages, city, etc. The human operating the software may just plugged in the most likely match.
Update: It still isn’t fixed, I don’t think. I still can’t log in. 