Today, I received a little envelope in the mail from the Target Visa people.

Background: Years ago, I signed up for an account with them so I could get 10% off of that day's purchases. After an annoying incident last year, I stopped using the card. Having paid off my balance, I didn't even bother to update them on my address when I moved out of my apartment last year. A couple months ago, the card finally reached its expiration date. I happily cut it up and threw it away.

Today, the envelope they sent me contained a new card with a credit limit that comes close to my total earnings this year, and a expiration date 2 years in the future. All I had to do was call and activate it. No big surprise, right? All credit card companies do that unless you explicitly tell them to cancel.

But here's the wierd/funny part: The envelope was addressed to the address I have been using for various business transactions with other entities (my mom's place). I had never given them my new address, because I didn't ever plan to use the card again. Nor did the address on the envelope match the forwarding address I had given to the Postal Service. I had used a P.O. Box for that.

Therefore, I can deduce that somehow, they got the address from somebody else. The "who" part could be any number of places. One of my employers? My bank? One of the other credit card companies I do business with? I don't know. But I know I didn't give it to them myself.

The real kicker is that the dispute I had with them which soured the relationship in the first place resulted from the fact that they were sending statements to an incorrect address last year, even though I had notified them of my new address. (And they wanted to charge me late fees for it, can you imagine? I eventually got them to take off the late fees, but I still grudgingly paid the interest that had accumulated.)

But now, even when I don't give them my new address, they somehow manage to find it and send me more enticements to go into debt.

I promptly tore the new card into little pieces and threw it away without calling the activation number.