Are you tired of receiving piles of credit card offers in the mail? I find them really annoying because most of the applications come pre-printed with personal information. This means that I have to take the time to shred each and every one of them.
Also, I recently went out to get my free yearly credit report and was amazed at the number of companies that accessed my report to send me these pre-approved offers.
Well, there are things you can do to prevent these things from happening.
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you can elect to “Opt Out” from the pre-screened offers. You do this online and the “Opt Out” lasts 5 years. You can also apply to have a permanent “Opt Out”, however, this requires you to also mail in a form. By opting out, you should significantly reduce the number of pre-screened offers you get in the mail. It doesn’t eliminate all junk mail, only pre-screened offers that use your credit report.
You can opt out by going to http://www.optoutprescreen.com
Another step you can take is to register your address with the Direct Marketing Association to have it added to their Mail Preference Service. All DMA members are required to run their list of prospective customers against the MPS list and remove names that appear on the MPS List.
You can get more information on the MPS at http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.html
It’s free to register by Mail. You can register online, but there is a $5 fee for that.
For more information on other ways to safe guard your identity, check you state’s attorney general’s web site.
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title Consumer protection. Thanks for informative article