I know of the risk. I know three people that work at Providian at the moment and I made sure to get fully briefed before I decided to go ahead and get the card. Thank you for the warning though. From what I've heard from them, Providian has pretty much settled with selling/closing accounts and are not taking any more new accounts (aside from ones that are through other companies, like PayPal). In addition, they aren't authorizing larger card limits (my PayPal card only has a $2,000 limit).