I applied for a new CC last year entirely on-line, and had the new card in my hands within a week. They never asked to verify my identity beyond my SSN / DOB / Address, which all seem likely to have been released in at least 3 breaches in the last few years. This is surprising to me, as I've been asked to show ID when opening a local bank account. To me this makes no sense: Why verify customers more stringently when they effectively loan you money than when you loan them money? I guess it may just have something to do with banking laws..

This is all just a long winded way to say that I think that credit card offers, by mail or web, are a problem. They cannot do any meaningful ID verification anymore, now that all info is essentially public. I think they need to partner with some agency that has a physical presence which can do verification of ID via government issued ID. Eg, a bank, merchant, etc, who can look at your driver license, passport, etc, and verify your identity. I suppose they are worried about adding too much friction.