Opt-out of Unsolicited Credit Card Offers

When you look at your credit report, you may be surprised to see how many companies have reviewed it, without your prior approval, in order to make unsolicited or promotional offers to you by mail -- for credit cards and the like.

The inquiries these companies have made into your credit history won't affect your overall credit or credit score. But they can be a nuisance.

These unsolicited credit card offer mailings are sometimes called prescreened offers or pre-approved offers.

Based on information on your credit report, the companies have determined that you meet their criteria for obtaining a credit card, an insurance policy or similar such financial product.

Technically, the credit card company or insurer involved may not have reviewed your individual credit report. It may simply have asked a credit reporting company for a list of consumers who meet the requirements it has set. Or it may have come up with its own list of potential customers, and then asked a credit reporting company to screen the list for those who meet certain requirements.

Either way, such unsolicited inquiries show up on your credit report.

These inquiries won't affect your credit report or affect your credit score.

But they nevertheless can be a bother. And under federal law, you can put a stop to many of them. In other words, you can opt-out.

You do this by contacting a clearinghouse that's run jointly by the four big credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian, Innovis and TransUnion. You may use either the phone number or the Web site listed above.

You choose whether to stop those unsolicited mailings. Your request will take effect within five days.

Call toll-free at 1-888-567-8688, or use this Web site: www.optoutprescreen.com 

Opt-out points to remember:

• If you're married, and both of you want to opt out, you both should go through the process.
• Opting out should stop many - but not all -- solicitations. One reason is that some offers you're mailed aren't based on the prescreening process mentioned above. Also, the prescreening process affects only offers that are based on lists from the four big credit reporting companies, the FTC says. (You might still get solicitations for credit and insurance based on lists from other sources, and you might still get mailings from other outfits with which you have done business in the past.)
• Once you opt out, you have the opportunity to "opt in" if you change your mind later on. (For example, you might later decide you want to get a new credit card, and some of those unsolicited, prescreened offers may appeal to you.)
• A new federal law requires companies that send out the type of unsolicited offers mentioned above to include in such mailings an easy-to-understand notice that explains a consumer's right to opt out of receiving future offers.
• The FTC has created a new consumer brochure, "Prescreened Offers of Credit and Insurance." It explains how the prescreening process works. It also spells out some of the benefits and consequences of receiving these offers and of opting out.

The brochure is available on the agency's Web site: www.ftc.gov 

(Enter the brochure's name in the search box at the top of the screen.)

You may also obtain a free copy by writing: FTC Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580.

Note: Don't just throw away unwanted credit card offers you receive in the mail; shred them. They contain personal information that thieves could use to steal your identity and your money. If your mailbox is stuffed with unwanted offers, you can stop them by calling (888) 5-OPT-OUT. That should stop most offers for two years.

Source: Providence Publications, LLC The Providence Journal
(Rhode Island), http://www.projo.com/, September 5, 2005. 

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