That’s largely how credit card solicitations end up in consumers’ mailboxes. Card issuers pay credit bureaus for the contact information of individuals who meet specific criteria, like a certain minimum credit score. Similarly, mortgage lenders pay bureaus for a list of consumers within a specific credit score bracket and mortgage balance so that they can contact them with refinancing offers. Nessa Feddis, senior vice president with the American Bankers Association, says the process helps lenders find customers who are likely to be interested in and qualified for the loans they’re offering.
Lenders also pay the bureaus for updates on existing customers: Some card issuers will pull credit scores on their cardholders to determine if they’ve become riskier, says Ulzheimer. They can use a lower credit score as a basis for cutting a customer’s credit line or increasing their interest rate on new purchases, he says. (They can also check to see if their customers have become less risky, in which case they can make more credit available.) Feddis, of the ABA, says every transaction on a credit card represents a new loan, so lenders check on their customers to make sure they’re still eligible for revolving credit and likely to be able to repay the loan.
To be sure, the Fair Credit Reporting Act states that credit bureaus can provide consumers’ information to companies that plan to make a firm offer of credit. Magnuson of the CDIA says the credit bureaus are careful about who has access to their systems, and they vet the lenders’ intended uses of credit reports. He adds that consumers can benefit from this dissemination, because they stand to receive loan offers that are less expensive than what they may currently have. Individuals who’d like to avoid solicitations can remove their name from the lists that credit bureaus sell by visiting OptOutPrescreen.com.