What Credit Card Companies Don`t Want You To Know

When you are ready to rid of that unneeded credit card, you may just want to do more than cut it in half.

Rob Cockerham from 20/20 decided to do his own experiement backed with a roll of tape, a digital camera, a blog, and a lot of irritation from those unsolicitated credit cards. In order to mimick ID theft, Rob did some reconstruction of the Chase MasterCard. , He changed the address on the application, to see if Chase would mail the card directly to an identity thief. And he used his cell phone number, much like a criminal would. He documented it all, mailed it all in and wondered what would happen.

You can imagine what happened next, the card was received in the mail not much longer.

Take a look at the video.

The credit card company defended itself by saying the address Cockerham used was a former residence tied to his name in their records and that regardless of the state of the application, Cockerham would have received the card anyway. Chase spokesman Paul Hartwick called Cockerham's Web site an "Internet prank." The company, he said, takes fraud detection seriously and employs 1,000 people to "protect our customers."

In the past, credit card companies have been known to issue credit cards in false names such as "Never Waste Trees", as well as issuing credit cards to children and pets.

Cockerham said he got an anonymous e-mail in response to his blog from a credit card industry worker with a confession: His employer tells him to approve literally everything -- even applications that come in with the words "stop sending me these." The issuer figures the consumers might change their minds once they have their hands on the plastic, Cockerham relayed from the e-mail.

So for now, Cockerham has this advice for consumers who are equally frustrated by pre-approved credit card offers. Tearing them up, it seems, isn't good enough.

"You should probably buy a shredder today," he said.