(1888PressRelease)
May 03, 2007 - The “identity theft” protection offered by many major credit card companies is remarkably easy to fool—and credit card companies seem utterly unprepared on how to respond to break-ins, even when directly confronted by a “thief.”
“This all started when I received an offer in the mail that promised to ‘protect my good name’ for $9.95 a month,” says Sir John Hargrave, editor-in-chief of ZUG.com. “The funny thing was that they sent the offer to a fake name, one of the ‘dummy accounts’ that I set up to catch the credit card companies at precisely this kind of behavior.”
Hargrave signed up for the service, then tried to set off credit card fraud alarms by behaving as criminally as possible: going on a massive shopping spree to designer outlets, purchasing a quarter-ton of chemical fertilizer (enough to blow up a city block), and signing his credit card receipts with the word “Stolen.” When Hargrave directly confronted the credit card company in a phone call, there was no acknowledgement of their mistake – only nervous laughter. (A recording of the call is available from ZUG.com.)
The credit card identity theft pretection prank proved that it is still amazingly easy to create a false identity, even when consumers have purchased “piece of mind” extra security from their merchant identity theft credit card prevention provider. The credit card companies seem ill-prepared to deal with even a comedian from Boston, much less a sophisticated ring of identity thieves.
“Because we’re a comedy site, people take our investigations with a grain of salt,” Hargrave admits. “But if this were 20/20, they’d have Morley Safer all over this story. Or at least Andy Rooney.”
This is the third credit card prank pulled off by Sir John. In his original “Credit Card Prank,” he forged fake signatures to credit card receipts ranging from “Mariah Carey” to “Zeus,” just to see if anyone would notice. (No one did.) In “The Visa Prank,” he proved how easy it is to break into a credit card account over the phone by tricking Visa customer service representatives with fake “mother’s maiden names.”
His credit card pranks have been read over six million times, discussed on hundreds of blogs, and covered in mainstream media from Sacramento to Sydney. ZUG.com has launched their newest highly-researched credit card identity theft prank to make journalists and online editors aware of the dangers of trusting credit card companies with your identity.
When asked how much longer he plans to keep pulling new credit card pranks, Hargrave was uncharacteristically brief. “Until something gets done about it,” he said.
The full credit card identity theft pretection prank is available here:
http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit-cards/
About ZUG.com
ZUG.com, the world’s oldest comedy Web site, has been serving up hilarious content and pranks since 1995. The success of the site recently caught the attention of Citadel Press, which released PRANK THE MONKEY: THE ZUG BOOK OF PRANKS, which immediately became an Amazon.com bestseller. ZUG.com works with clients to provide targeted viral SEO link building strategies to custom viral marketing online.
CONTACT:
Angela Frantz
Media Shower, Inc.
http://www.zug.com
800 Boylston Street, Ste 990586
Boston, MA 02199-9998
USA
angela ( @ ) zug dot com
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