I’m writing this just before Thanksgiving, and one of the many things I’m thankful for is that the major credit-reporting agencies finally understand they were a major part of the identity-theft problem. Things are far from perfect in this area, but there has been a significant, though small, step taken in the right direction.

One of the clear and present dangers of life in the United States (and maybe elsewhere) in recent years has been the ever-increasing flood of “preapproved” credit card applications showing up in our physical mailboxes. Merely discarding them leaves you open to exploit by crooks picking through your trash. Tearing them up does not help reduce the risk.

A year or so ago one of the local TV consumer-advocate reporters ripped up a number of the preapproved forms then taped them together and filled them out with inaccurate information (incorrect postal addresses, for example). She then returned the forms. Most of the banks sent her cards. When asked about the obvious risk in granting a credit card to someone who sent in a taped together application, the banks said they were satisfied that their verification process was just fine (for another example of the same thing, click here).

I’ve tried to use the credit-industry process for opting out of these offers -- twice. The first time was about two years ago, and the second about nine months ago. I do not recall for sure, but I think I used both the Web site and the phone number (1-888-567-8688). I will not claim that these are ways for the people pushing credit cards to find more victims, but I have not seen any reduction in the number of offers. If anything, the number has gone up. I now average about one a day, six days a week. Getting five offers in the same mail delivery the other day prompted me to write this column.