“Congratulations! You’ve been pre-approved for a $200,000 mortgage to buy a house.”
Many people receive a lot of junk mail that reads like the above paragraph, and it can get annoying. It doesn’t apply only to mortgages, though – car dealerships, credit card companies and more.
Many of these companies purchase your information from credit bureaus. They can buy data such as your credit score, credit card and loan balances, and more. The purchasers of your information have a good idea of your creditworthiness, and the bureaus make an exorbitant profit from these sales. These are called “pre-screened offers.”
While the solicitors are able to target you as an ideal prospect, they must also offer you a chance to opt out of the marketing materials since it is a pre-screened offer. You typically can find the way to opt out by reading the fine print on the mail piece.
If you avoid your junk mail and don’t want to read through all of it, here’s an easier way to opt out of pre-screened offers: OptOutPreScreen.com.
OptOutPreScreen.com is a joint venture among the four main consumer credit reporting companies — Equifax, Experian, Innovis and TransUnion. On the site, you can either opt out from receiving offers for five years, opt out from receiving offers permanently or opt in.
While the team here at Florida Mortgage Firm never sends mail claiming that you’re pre-approved for some arbitrary amount, we do help all of our clients opt out if they want. Either way, you have some options about who receives your information.
Take the next step
Getting started is easy. Just pick one of the options below and answer some questions. It only takes a few minutes.