>Amazing, truly amazing.
>
>Maybe I'm naive, but of all the surprising things in this, the one that truly stuns me is that an SSN is not required.

Well, what truly stuns me is granting a credit card to someone who
- may not understand their notices (even their bills)
- probably earns so little that paying *any* interest at all can only HURT them
- can only add to the number of bad debts incurred by the bank (meaning ALL carddholders pay (extra) in the end).

No SSN likely means that they'll be getting lots of "regular" customers who'd like to hide some things from the IRS. Maybe that's their real objective.