Credit Card Offers

Dear Credit Karma,
I was told that if you put offer blocks on your credit information with the 3 reporting agencies that you would not receive pre-approved offers for credit and that it would also raise your credit score. I did this about 3 months ago and haven’t seen any jump in score and I received a pre-approved credit offer yesterday in the mail. What do you know about this?

It is possible to put “offer blocks”—meaning you will not receive offers based on your credit, such as pre-approved or pre-screened credit cards in the mail—on your credit information two different ways: by opting out of those pesky “pre-approved” unsolicited credit card offers, or by freezing access to your credit report. These two different methods have various effects on your credit file. But take note, neither of these methods can necessarily raise your credit score.

If you want to stop receiving pre-approved offers for credit cards, you can put an “offer block” by contacting OptOutPrescreen, the official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry website that puts a stop to “prescreened” or “preapproved” from credit card and insurance companies free of charge. This will exclude you from being mailed pre-approved offers from creditors and lenders for 5 years if done through the website, or permanently when mailed-in with form. The benefits of using OptOutPrescreen are that you reduce your risk of identity theft, credit card fraud, as well as unwanted junk mail.

However, using OptOutPrescreen will not raise your credit score. Since pre-screened and pre-approved credit offers use a soft inquiry done by lenders to look at your credit score to determine your eligibility, a soft inquiry won’t affect your credit score. Your credit score will only benefit from the added protection of cutting off pre-screened offers mail that can easily be stolen and manipulated by others to steal your identity or commit credit card fraud.

Another way to put a block on offers is to freeze access on your credit reports, which you can learn more about by visiting FinancialPrivacyNow.org. A security freeze, which can be initiated at all 3 major credit bureaus, locks access to your credit file against anyone trying to open a new account or creditors trying to check your credit report. This is typically done to reduce risk of identity theft. It can also put a stop to pre-approved/pre-screened offers because creditors can’t do a soft inquiry on your credit file in order check your eligibility for their offer.

However, this action will not boost your credit score either, unless you are already a victim of identity theft and thus a security freeze will halt unwanted abuse on your credit. Requesting a security freeze will not improve your credit score because your credit report cannot benefit from any positive actions; your score will remain “frozen”.

Bottomline, putting an offer block on your credit information via these two methods can put a stop to annoying spam mail from credit card companies, but it will not directly raise your credit score.

Submit a question now, and maybe Credit Karma will answer your question on our next Q & A blog post!

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