Repeated credit card offers after being turned down

Factual Questions
1

First, up-front, my credit rating stinks (screwed it up in my 20s when I was a drunk).

As a Costco member, I receive mailings from them offering me the chance to apply for their American Express card. I’ve been presented such “opportunities” by others, but I’ve always just trashed them. I spent some years working to clear my old debt, and chose not to use any new credit until I got everything cleared up.

Now, most of my old debt is clear, but I still haven’t established any new credit. I also wondered if, being a Costco member, their card might be a bit easier to get. So a few months ago I went ahead and applied for the Costco American Express card. As I expected, my application was turned down, with a primary reason given that I don’t have any recent credit history. True enough.

So my question is this: why do they continue to send me offers for this card after they’ve already turned me down? If I didn’t qualify last month, I don’t think enough about my situation has changed to suddenly let me qualify this month …

Is it just a matter of everybody on the Costco customer list getting one of these things every month? They don’t cross-check the mailing list with the previously-turned-down list?

2

Generally, lists provided by credit reporting agencies are more likely to result in an approval of credit offered (pre-approval). Sounds like someone is just working off a list that was generated without any knowledge of your credit history and/or your application history.

I’d be stunned if there was effective cross checking going on.