You didn’t, you only claimed that you know the way the industry works. We’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out just what that means.
I don’t know, you are the one that brought up the subject.
It means I know a lot about the industry.
Quit trying to pick a fight.
OK, all of you, stop the petty squabbling. Now. Or take it to the Pit.
The Swan, you’ve garnered a warning. The use of personal insults outside the Pit is forbidden.
And on further review, stpauler, you get one too.
And I deserved it, my apologies to the Swan.
Likewise, stpaul. I’m sorry for getting a little hot.
No hard feelings, I hope.
Thank you, gentlemen; I’ve noted your apologies in your warnings.
Now, can we improve on SteveMB’s answer, which seems to me to nail the issue?
Okie Dokie. In this article, they mention that the practice was quite common in the 60s, but that it was halted by “an act of congress”.
An interesting article, but not particularly specific. I’ll see what else I can find.
Odd that it happened today, but I received two credit cards in the mail, for two different former residents. I opened them before I looked at the names on the envelopes, but sure enough, two pre-approved credit cards for two different people who haven’t lived here for at least two years. I shredded them, but I snickered for a moment about the Caribbean vacation we could have taken on their credit. (Also, I know that our landlord is suing one former tenant for $60,000, so that dude’s credit is about to be screwed beyond belief.)
Perhaps you could recap what SteveMB said?
Incidentally, I am a finance manager for the largest credit card issuer in the United States. Based on your posts, I am unable to confirm your expertise.
Suffice to say, for my issuer, FICO score is a critical piece of information. We do not under any circumstances mail live unsolicited cards.
I don’t dispute any of that. Perhaps I should amend my original assertion to say that there are a great number of credit cards that are issued without a review of a credit report.
Fortunately, we have a very sophisticated automated platform that reviews credit reports and scores to determine cardholder eligibility. I cannot imagine the waste of time and expense that manually reviewing every credit report would cause.
You can say that again. Just for clarification, does your company review (automatically) every applicant’s credit report?
Interestingly, I heard Dave Ramsey make the same claim on his show today that I made earlier. Not that he knows everything he claims.
? I doubt that.
Just so everyone knows (to the best of my knowledge), pre-approved means nothing. If you look at the bottom of the pre-approval letter, there is bound to be some small print.
Also, you still have to either fill out a form or call in, both with your social security number and other necessary information needed to pull your credit. They will pull your credit and check to see if you are worthy of their card.
If your credit is bad, perhaps they will offer a secured credit card (you give them money that they put in ‘escrow’ - perhaps a bad use of the term - that you borrow/charge against). Or they will say “sorry, you do not qualify”.
Pre-approval is just the first step to getting approved. That’s it.
As far back as I can remember (that’s years, BTW) all of the “pre-approved” credit card offers I’ve received always include some sort of disclaimer that upon my acceptance of **their ** offer, they have the “right” to substitute another card with a lesser credit limit, higher fees, fees at all, OR, they might just decide they don’t want to give me a card after all.
I can’t remember ever receiving a totally unsolicited credit card in the mail, though I do recall perhaps 20 or 30 years ago, that was done to some extent.
So, in MY humble opinion, nope, they don’t still send out unsolicited credit cards.
Or, since FormerMarineGuy types faster than I do, what he said 
Not bad for one hand, huh?