This seems as good a thread to post to as any, and it isn't worth starting a new one. I don't think.

I refinanced my house recently. The size of the mortgage, the name and address, and general particulars (but not SS# and such) are a matter of public record. As when I bought the house, I am now receiving a slew of scurrilous postings from the dregs of society and various scammers.

The first one had the name of the mortgage lender on the top, to make it look like my mortgage company was offering to let me insure my mortgage payments--something happens to me, the payments are made. But this is some place in Maryland with a word processing program and a copier. The next one was so badly misspelled it was a joke. But today a really scary one arrived, and I wonder how many unsuspecting folks have walked into this one? I'm sure they got my information as a "live address" from the public records.

They mail you a shiny plastic credit card looking thing with a number and your name and a message to call to activate it. They've set it up with tons of "small print" in all-caps so it is barely readable. Lots of underlining and exceptions on the back of the sheet. The gist of it is this "$6500 credit limit" card is a license to rob you blind if you're so stupid as to call and activate this card. $200 a year to have this thing that is an overblown catalog company (remember the catalog company scams about 20 years ago, you had to join to buy anything and they didn't have anything in stock?).

This company is called CCS Credit Service Division, out of Las Vegas. It took a few moments on Google to find this. It looks like that since 1998 they have not ceased and desisted.

Whew! I'm going to have to fumigate my mail box AND my shredder after this one!

SRS