One of the collateral costs of identity theft that I’ve talked about for years is the impact on trust. As consumers it’s so hard to tell whether those emails or phone calls asking for account confirmation or password information are from legitimate companies or from crooks, the safest option is not to trust anyone.

The same trust issue arises at work, when we shop, eat at restaurants, even allow others to use our computer. So it continues to irk me how one of the biggest players in the middle of the id theft epidemic – credit card companies – are deliberately creating marketing strategies that only further erode this trust.

Today I received a letter from Discover Card thanking me for signing up for a payment protection service that’s supposed to help cover my credit card payments should I fall ill. The letter said nothing about when I signed up, how I signed up, or even how much it cost. To make matters worse, I never ordered such a service. Never would, don’t need them, and don’t trust them.

So when I called Discover Card the operator reminded that I should have received a phone call some days earlier explaining the service and asking me to acknowledge that I received the call.

The operator went on to say that in that call the Discover representative would also have informed me that my “yes” answer to “acknowledging” that I had received the call would also automatically enroll me in a 30-day trial of the payment protection program.

And I did remember that call, and how surprised I was when the representative asked me simply to confirm that the program and its benefits had been explained to me. And there was the gotcha. Of course the representative never mentioned the 30-day trial or my automatic enrollment.

Later that day, as expected, a charge of $53 appeared on my Discover Card statement for their payment protection program. I’m assuming it’s $53 per month and not per year – again I’ve received no explanation of the cost of the service I never ordered.

There is little more than a marketing strategy deliberately build around dishonesty. I didn’t ask for the service and in fact specifically stated that I didn’t want it (another credit card company had called me only a week earlier with the same pitch and I told them where to go to – guess I had better check that statement too).

So to enroll me in it anyway is nothing short of dishonesty, and possibly fraud. No doubt Discover’s defense would either be that I did agree to accept the 30-day trial and just didn’t remember, or the representative made an error and will be disciplined/reprogrammed/taken outside and whipped etc.

What makes matters worse is that we’ve known for years that the credit card industry constantly strives to create new marketing strategies that will con, dupe or confuse consumers into paying for things they don’t want and didn’t ask for.

And yet as the guardians of some of our most sensitive financial information they continue to plead for our trust and confidence.

Speaking personally, my trust is shot. I don’t trust any call or email that purports to be from any financial organization because it’s too hard to tell the difference. But when I can tell the difference and determine that it really is my bank or credit card company, I trust it even less.

In many ways the greed, stupidity, and dishonesty of the financial industry makes them a powerful ally to identity thieves worldwide.