My unsolicited credit nightmare

I was just watching BBC Breakfast as they demonstrated how, if you try to buy something on Next's website, they helpfully set up a store account for you, with a £300 credit limit, and presumably a whacking great interest rate.

Of course £300 of unwanted store card, or even a few £000 of automatically increased credit card limit, is irritating, and for some people dangerous.

However, I have good reason to think this is a problem that is in decline. When I was a student, I had an account (rather than a store card) with Heffers bookshop. Sometime around 2000, I was surprised to see a statement arrive which said that my credit limit had been increased from the £200 or so I was used to, to £99,999,999,999,999,999 - giving me enough purchasing power to take over the entire world economy. And they didn't even ask me first.