I'm posting this just for general knowledge. Many of you get offers from credit card companies and insurance carriers that you do not want. I used to get so sick of shredding all the offers I got in the mail. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act the Consumer Credit Reporting Companies are permitted to include your name on lists used by creditors or insurers to make firm offers of credit or insurance that are not initiated by you. Besides being a pain, the pre-screening done by these companies can have minor effects on your credit scores. It's not supposed to, but it does. They run inquiries on you when your information fits what they're looking for, and they verify it against your credit before presenting you with an offer in the mail. Though the impact to your score is minor, it will lower your scores slightly when you end up on a pre-screened list.

You have the right to stop this if you want to, they call it Opt-out. If you opt-out, you can always opt-in again if you'd like. I'm including a link to the official website used by the credit bureaus to opt-in or opt-out. It's managed by the bureaus themselves, so it's a little slanted towards opting out being a bad idea.... kinda like Phillip Morris telling you that you shouldn't smoke.

Opt-Out/Opt-in website (http://https://www.optoutprescreen.com/opt_form.cgi)

Hope this is good information for some of you. :)