If you’re like me, you get credit card solicitations in the mail almost every day. I really don’t care to have a card other than the one I have. Most of these solicitations arrive because credit bureaus sell lists of customers with specific credit attributes.
I’ve known for awhile that you can call 888-5-OPT-OUT to get the credit bureaus to stop sending you these things. But it’s annoying.
There’s a new feature now: you can go to their website at www.optoutprescreen.com and opt out there. Well, maybe it’s not new, but it’s new to me anyway.
Thanks for mentioning this!
I suggest reading this before you “Opt out”:
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2005/4/11/11737/1557
It’s an interesting read, and I had opted out once before, and it seemed to work for about 2 years.
However, the point that Ed misses is that these companies already *have* all the information they are asking you for. They are already sharing it all over the place. When you provide it at that site, you’re not telling them anything they don’t already know.
They have information, but they are not sure it’s correct (most of the spam lists that are for sale contain mostly garbage). By asking you to confirm, they can be more sure about the correctness.
IMHO opt-out mechanisms should be illegal, opt-in is a much better & more humane way to handle “pushed publicity”.
http://www.bash.org/?127039
hahahah