Credit bureaus can and do sell your information to creditors, insurance companies and more. These companies will send you prescreened and pre-approved offers for credit cards and insurance. These offers may not be offered to the general public and they may be helpful for you to comparison shop. However, they also allow your address and other information to be available to creditors, skip-tracers, collection agencies and more.
Also if you choose to respond to such offers, your credit score may actually go down because the credit bureaus actually have a ?response score? where they take note of whether or not you respond to such offers. If you do respond you are deemed a higher risk than if you do not respond.
While you are repairing your credit you will be better off if you opt-out from any offers, besides that you will be reducing your junk mail and reducing your risk of identity theft. It will take approximately 2 weeks for your opt-out to take effect.
You have the right to opt out and not share your private information with others including credit card offers.. Calling 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) to have your name removed from direct marketing lists. You can do this online at OptOutPreScreen.com, which is the official consumer credit reporting industry opt-out website.
If you want more information about your credit and how to opt out the government has more at:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre17.shtm.
If you are having your share of credit and financial troubles this will help you.
