Peoples' bank gaffe mails MasterCards to the masses

This morning, my wife received a debit MasterCard she didn't request, sent to an address she hasn't lived at for five years, from a bank she's never done business with.

My heart skipped a beat. Was I seeing the first indications of some nefarious identity theft scheme?

The debit card, ostensibly from Peoples' United Bank, certainly looked legit. The sticker on it included an activation number to call and an official looking debit card agreement. But the card account number certainly wasn't familiar. What account was it tied to? Perhaps one that someone else created in my wife's name?

But on closer inspection, the evidence for identity theft just didn't add up. For one thing, my wife has a permanent security freeze in place with all three major credit reporting agencies (I have a security freeze in place myself and it's something I highly recommend -- unless you like to take advantage of those in-store, one year same-as-cash instant credit offers). Since no one issues a card without running a credit report first, and since a security freeze prevents anyone from accessing her credit report without her explicitly granting access and unlocking it, new account fraud seemed unlikely.

Then there was the mystery of the address on the envelope. If someone had opened up an account in my wife's name for the purposes of financial fraud, wouldn't they use an alternative P.O. box address to keep the victim uninformed for as long as possible? Why would they have the card sent to our real address -- and a five-year-old one at that?

So I called the bank, and after a frustrating 30-minute runaround with one of those too-efficient-for-its-own-good automated attendant systems -- the ones that are so cocksure they know what option you need that they won't allow you to speak with an agent -- I managed to connect with a supervisor who admitted that the bank had sent the card in error.

According to the supervisor, Peoples' acquired three banks in my area recently -- including one where we used to have an account but no longer do business. As part of the transition Peoples' sent new MasterCard debit cards to all of its new "customers" -- including the former owners of many of the acquired banks' closed accounts. Due to a database glitch (read: Human Error), they inadvertently included every former customer who had a card that would have expired in August. (She couldn't say how many people were affected).

Apparently, many other people this week are opening their mail to find a similar surprise. So far, Peoples' doesn't appear to be too forthcoming about the error. The press release area of the bank's Web site makes no mention of it and I have received no correspondence from them about the issue.

But the supervisor on the phone did apologize. So I cut up the card and thew it away. And I'm happy to report that I am and will always be a former customer.

Update (Aug 17):  This morning we received a letter from Peoples' United Bank containing a second MasterCard carrying my wife's name, this time with a different account number. On a lark I called the 800 number and attempted to activate it. Fortunately, the recording says that the account number entered is "not on file."