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I actually had something somewhat similar happen to me back in college. I was your typical broke-as-a-joke college kid, and there were mobs of guys w/ credit card applications canvasing the campus. Fill out an app... get a free T-shirt. Or backpack. Or sunglasses. Whatever.
So just fill out the app, get free gear, and then when the card arrives just never activate it, cut it up and forget about it. Easy, right?
Not quite. I received the cards, I cut them up... and since I'm a college kid I'm moving all over campus. I'm in one dorm, then another, then an apartment, then another, then a house, etc etc. Problem is those guys sent a card that already had a charge on it. I cut it up, threw it away... since I still had all my "real mail" going to my parents house, I never filled out mail-forwarding with the USPS. So when late bills started coming to my OLD addresses, I never knew about them.
So then I graduate, go to buy a car... and my credit report shows that I have 3 cards that are black-listed, the company wrote them off as "unrecoverable expenses", and it crushed my credit rating. I start digging, and eventually I turn up these cards with like $10-20 dollar "service" charges.
Gya. Bastards. Thanks for the free T-shirt. Now I have a 12% rate on my car instead of a 3% rate. Fan-fucking-tastic.
After wrangling with those companies for damn near a year I've just about gotten my credit patched up... but it's amazing how ppl try to take advantage of young kids/old people.
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