chongo@nsc.UUCP (Landon Noll) (03/06/84)
it starts with SHELL. before i had cards, i always got a cash receipt when i got gas. shell has this deal where you can use another credit card as long as you apply for a SHELL credit card. (they want to suck up old ARCO cards) you fill out a normal SHELL card purchase paper and add your name/address. one day i asked for both a cash receipt and a credit card application, and was given one of of the card purchase papers to fill out. it was marked as a cash transaction. well in a few weeks SHELL sent me a card for someone's name just alphabetically prior to mine. the person behind me had enough of a credit history to get a card. (i had NO credit at this time mind you...) there was a form that came with the card which had a "change of name/address form on it". at the time i thought i had my first card, but with the wrong spelling so i sent in a name correction. (i bet some operator seeing cash just left the card number fields untouched and the COBOL program carried over the previous record...) i filled out a SEARS application listing my shell card as reference. they approved my application. (i had tried 6 times before) i contacted SHELL to make sure that i card was unique and not meerly a link to the previous guy's card. it was; they stamp cards with a running counter so that same names dont present a problem. SHELL also told me that i had to give up my SHELL card because of lack of credit references! i submitted a new form listing my SEARS card as a reference back to SHELL. SHELL sees my SEARS card and reissues the SHELL card. SEARS picks up from the credit report division that my SHELL card was issued in error. SEARS cancels my SEARS credit card. i reapply to SEARS with my SHELL card and SEARS reissues my SEARS card again! chongo <this led to my getting a BIG-name card> /\../\ p.s. you cant get credit if you violate the law of causality!