Gold, Platinum, Titanium & Fraud

The motivation for this post is a mail thread going on in one of the mailing lists back in office where people have been discussing about fraudsters who claim that they are from one of the known credit card companies and are luring people to go in for Platinum/Titanium/Gold credit cards with attractive credit limits and in the process get application forms forms filled-up and take photocopies of documents like Company ID/badge, PAN card, Salary slip etc. 99% of all this is just identity/information theft. One could easily misuse this information.

On the other hand there have been cases where genuine companies take undue advantage of the affiliate credit card company's brand name. A representative from "SBI" credit card calls you up and says that you are been offered a lifetime Platinum credit card from "SBI" and after all the formalities of filling-up of forms, 20 days later you are delivered a TATA credit card which is an affiliate of SBI cards. Cheats!

This definitely rings the bell of paranoia in my mind and would like to suggest to all to be extra-careful with credit cards (and off-late have been hearing about fraud when it comes to health cards). If you want to apply for a credit card, go to the company's website and apply instead of falling into the trap of tele-marketing calls.