Introduction
After my recent Capital One shutdown leading to the shutdown of my wife’s account, it dawned on me – should you kick your spouse out of the house? No, not physically kicking them out, but maybe having you (or them) move out of the house into a nice mailbox. For most people, this isn’t necessary, but if you’ve ever been shut down by Barclay’s, Chase, Citi, or Capital One, then you know that they will come after everyone in the household. By them moving into a mailbox, then they most likely won’t be affected. So that’s the benefit of kicking them out.
Drawback
Of course the biggest drawback of this strategy is now there will be a new address reported on their credit report, which is a minor inconvenience. However, the “insurance” might be worth it. So how does this come into real life? Well you are in luck – yours truly HAS changed his address before. Back in the TD prepaid card days, a guy on FT told me over PM that I could change my Capital One ‘billing address’ to a New York address, and so when I try to sign up for the TD card, whoila, it’ll work since that’s my registered address. Of course when I actually did try it, it didn’t work and so I wasted my time.
After a few months, I noticed one day when I was buying a Sears GC reload, the personal security questions came up. One of the questions was, “What county is this [New York address] in?” I was confused at first and was going to pick that I wasn’t associated with the address, but then I remembered back, “SHIT! That’s the address I put in for the Capital One card a while back.” That so far is the only drawback that I’ve come across from having the NY address on my credit report.
So am I going to do this myself?
Yes, I’ve already moved out on my Elan Visa card. I’m going to move myself out on my Citi cards to my mailbox. The reason for that is just because 1) I don’t want my wife to have to worry about a new address and 2) I’ve already gotten all of the Citi cards I want already, so changing it it easy. I’m not sure what address I’d put down on future Citi apps; I’m guessing my mailbox one. So has anyone else done this already or am I just overly paranoid?
Do you get a new Drivers License with the new address? I have a UPS address that I use for some bills but wonder how this would work with getting a license linked to that address.
No you don’t need to go that far, but it is possible to get a DL with the mailbox address
There are other benefits as well as security (doubling down on Staples promos, gc & gcm orders). I’ve been to lazy to do it, but it’s becoming more and more appealing.
I regret not doing it earlier.
Wouldn’t you also need to have different physical/home addresses as well?
Exactly. Your mailbox is your new address. It gets hairy when you need to show a utility bill..
I tried using a mailbox when I was banned from ToysRus and those tricky bastards still found out it was me and canceled all orders. I had to use one of my wife’s co-workers and her school’s address to get an order through. Such a PITA so I just gave up. Hopefully when we move to a new state orders will begin to flow through again. Might use my wife’s name anyways…