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How
many times per week does your mailbox contain an
offer for a pre-approved
credit card?
If you're like most people, you are receiving
between two and ten pre-approved credit card
offers each and every week! In a time when
everything is being made from recycled materials
in an effort to help save our environments from
excessive waste products that are filling up our
landfills and polluting our earth- you probably
find the number of pre-approved credit offers a
big waste of paper. Particularly if you're not
even considering obtaining a new credit card.
Unfortunately, the Fair Credit Reporting Act
of 1970 (and amended in 1990) gives the credit bureaus
permission to sell your credit history
information to credit lending companies. In order
to keep it "fair" for consumers, however, the
amendment of 1990 allows for consumers to choose
NOT to receive these offers.
The selling of your credit history to credit card
companies does not affect your credit score
in any way, but may show up as an "inquiry" on
your report. An inquiry is when a company has
looked at your information, in order to determine
your eligibility requirements. When an individual
is not interested in getting more credit however,
it seems ridiculous for them to receive so many
"pre-approved" credit offers in the mail each
week.
There are three things you can do to stop
receiving these annoying credit card offers. The
first, and the most fun, is not as effective as
the second and third actions you can take, but is
highly recommended anyway just for the
entertainment value. Each of your credit card
offers will most likely come with postage paid,
return envelopes. Companies pay more than the
standard rate of postage in order to get these
envelopes- but only if the envelopes are actually
placed in the mail. They pay nothing for postage
on the envelopes that we just toss in the garbage.
The theory is if you stuff other junk mail into
the postage paid return envelopes and mail enough
of them back to the companies, they will stop
sending out unsolicited offers so that they are
not paying for wasted return postage. While this
could be really fun, and you might feel like quite
the rebel when doing it, you may not get much of a
result.
Each credit card offer you receive should have a
fine print section that includes how you can
prevent the credit bureaus from including you in
the pre-screened lists that result in your getting
credit card offer after offer. Most people never
even see the fine print because the offer ends up
being tossed in the trash immediately, or because,
well, it's fine print.
The other two actions you can take to stop
receiving credit card offers are to visit a
website and fill out a formal request: http://www.optoutprescreen.com,
or make a phone call to 1-888-5-optout. This is an
automated service that is supposed to be run by
the main four credit bureaus, so it should stop
all pre-screened mailings that come from any of
the four bureaus.
Alternatively, you can always formally request the
credit bureaus to stop including you on
pre-screened lists by sending a letter to each
bureau. Make sure you include your name, social
security number, mailing address and phone number.
If you've moved recently, include your previous
address as well, so there is no confusion!
There is really very little benefit to receiving
the countless credit card offers in the mail each
week. It's wasting paper and time, not to mention
providing you with offers that are probably not as
good as the offers you could get if you actually
called or applied for a card with the company
sending the pre-screened offers. If you decide
after opting out of pre-screened lists that you
want to get a new credit card, you can use the
internet to find a new card to apply for or simply
call your local bank!
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