I haven’t encountered any anecdotes of this scam “in the wild,” but I’m sure it’s happening somewhere.

You may have noticed it’s a bit tricky to get a credit card lately. That’s because everybody went nuts for a few years—lenders were putting plastic into literally every hand that reached for it, and consumers spent, spent, spent like…I won’t say “drunken sailors” because that would be offensive to drunken sailors. It was way worse than that.

Anyway, this whole mess came crashing down on our collective head a couple years ago, and lenders stopped lending irresponsibly. Actually, some of them nearly stopped lending altogether, which was yet another rookie mistake, in my opinion.

At any rate, since there’s nothing that can’t be turned into a scam, the following scenario emerged.

You get an offer for a credit card with a high spending limit, even though your credit score is lower than your shoe size. However, you have to pay a processing fee up front, usually around $100. You send in your payment, and the card never arrives. It’s an incredibly simple scam: promise something, collect payment, never deliver.

By the way, in applying for this card, you’ve also just given your personal information to people (you will soon realize) you can’t trust. Bad scene.

Now, there are legitimate credit cards with annual fees. However, none of them ever require you to pay in advance of getting the card. Don’t fall for this setup.

Besides, if you’re already in credit trouble, what you don’t need is a new credit card with a $7,500 limit. Even if the offer was real, which it’s not, you’d be inviting more trouble into your life.

I heard about this scam from WalletPop.com. It looks like an informative site, although I haven’t looked around too much on it yet. Check it out, you might find something interesting.