The Low-Down on Credit Card Solicitations via Email
Some of you may have no problem tearing up those credit card applications or saying “thanks, but no thanks” to the telemarketers who call you to offer new credit.
But are you lured by those email offers for credit cards? In this age of the Internet and high-tech fraud, you need to be especially careful with these unwanted solicitations. If you get an email that supposedly comes from a bank where you’re already doing business, but the sender of the email asks for your account number or requests that you “confirm” certain personal information, such as your address or social security number, please don’t fall for this scam. Someone could be trying to steal your identity for their own financial gain. (Read more about identity theft and how to avoid it, in Day 11). Use common sense here. If a financial institution has an existing business relationship with you, they should already know your address and account number. So, asking you for it via email is ridiculous! Don’t worry if the email says “your account will be terminated” if you don’t reply by a certain date. More often than not, that’s a big red flag that you shouldn’t respond. Even if the email turns out to be legitimate, your bank or financial institution maintains records electronically. In the worst case scenario, if your account does get “terminated,” – which I’ve never once heard of happening to someone under these circumstances – your bank will still have your account number and identifying information. So any account that mistakenly gets closed can easily be reopened.
Turn Your Credit Card Offers into Cash
Finally, here’s a strategy for handling all those credit card offers that come to you via snail mail or email: get paid for them! A well-known research company, called Cardweb.com, has a division called Cardwatch.com. CardWatch is a monitoring service and research library of payment card marketing materials. The company tracks the various ways in which credit card issuers market to consumers. As a result, Cardweb.com will actually pay you if you send them the credit card solicitations you receive in your mailbox or email inbox. Recently, Cardweb.com was paying $4 for each credit card offer you send to them, and $1 for each email solicitation you forward to the company. Additionally, Cardweb.com pays $10 for every cardholder agreement you submit. The cardholder agreement can be found in those pages and pages of fine print outlining the terms of your deal with a credit card company. To qualify for this offer, you have to scan your credit card offers and you must email them to Cardweb.com. To learn more, visit: www.cardweb.com/cardwatch/submit/email.html.
When I learned of this program, it made me think of a woman who was featured years ago in the Wall Street Journal. This lady kept each and every credit card offer her family received over the course of a year. I believe it was from 1997. After one year, the woman tallied up all the solicitations and found that various banks and financial institutions sent her family something like $3.5 million worth of credit offers. Let’s assume that the average credit card she received was $10,000. That would translate into 350 credit card offers – or practically one for every single day of the year! If this woman is still receiving such a huge number of credit card solicitations, she could really clean up with Cardweb’s program. Maybe you can too. Remember: about six billion credit cards are sent out annually. That means the average household gets about 60 solicitations. We all know, of course, that “averages” can be tricky. Statistics show that more than 70% of all U.S. households receive credit card offers. This means that, believe it or not, some people get no credit card offers. Others, like the woman profiled in the Wall Street Journal, receive hundreds in a single year. If you’re in that latter group, and your funds are tight, why not take those numerous credit card offers you receive and turn them into cash?
Next – Day 2 Make a resolution to “stop digging.”
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Lynnette is a personal finance expert, author and speaker.