As I caught up on mail over the past few weeks I noticed something...a slew of Credit card offers. Now this is nothing new as credit card companies are trying to find anyone with a pulse. It costs over $30 (probably closer to $100 now) to acquire a new credit card customer, and most of those have to be rate flippers.
So like I said nothing really new, except that I noticed I am getting bombarded by Chase Visa and American Express. I am now getting multiple offers...per week from both of them. It costs, even with great marketing consolidation and bulk, probably between 40 and 50 cents to contact me, just through the mail! $20-30 per year in junk just to me!
Now I know I can save trees and my mail carrier and probably kittens in a third-world country by blocking my adress either through the DMA (Direct Marketers Assc) or True Credit, where I get my credit report, but truth of the matter is I like to see the offers.
One, it is a great early warning system about how your credit ranking is currently. The offer reflect your credit FICO band...I have crept into the 700 band now, so we are getting pretty darn good offers, but not the Captain Insano ones (you need 720+ to get those). Second, I like being able to weight moving debt around if I can save money and I am not above call my card company and grinding them for a better deal.
So we dance...
Dance the "I may ask you out, but I am waiting for a better looking gal (or fella for the ladies)" sort of dance. However, if they want to save some money I will tell them NO for $10 :)
How's your mailbox?
2 Comments:
Hi Racer - It's annoying isn't it? No wonder they charge such high interest rates if they're spending all that cash on bombarding people with junk.
Hey Cath!
Yep annoying and a waste of time. But it is probably such a non-decision for most to pick up a card that they need to be there when you aren't even thinking about it, like gum!
Good to hear from one of my all-time favorite bloggers!
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