Credit Myth: Credit card pre-approval offers hurt your credit score

It seems I get more junk in my mailbox these days than mail I actually want to open.  The most annoying may be the credit card pre-approval offers.  Although a nuisance, these offers are not negatively impacting your credit scores.  The credit card and insurance companies are not accessing your specific credit profile to determine you are pre-approved creating an inquiry into your credit.

So how do they know you are “pre-approved” then?  The credit bureaus are in the business of making money and one of the ways they make money is by selling information.  The company making the offer of credit or insurance has paid the credit bureaus for names that meet certain criteria.  For example, they may pay the bureaus for a list of names of anyone who has a credit score over 720.  The bureaus won’t provide the exact credit score, simply that you meet the “pre-screened” criteria.

The good news is that you can stop these offers from coming.  Each offer should provide the phone number, 1–888–5OPTOUT (1–888–567–8688), so you can call and “opt-out” of receiving the offers.  This number can also be found at www.annualcreditreport.com where you can order your free credit report to help you monitor your credit profile.  By calling this number you can exclude your name from these pre-approval offer lists.

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