Question
I apologize in advance, but I have to vent a little bit about the Mileage Plus Visa mailers that I get seemingly on a continuous basis. It may be unpopular on the "Mileage & Points" thread, but here it goes:
I am constantly bombarded with United Mileage Plus junk mail. I was out of the country last week, and I came home to two separate mailers to sign up for the credit card. I get them week after week after week, and I throw them all away. Does Chase (I believe Chase is the credit card company) get the hint? No. They keep sending me more offers.
Mulitply my experience with thousands if not millions of people, and I have to wonder, how much paper are they wasting? How much money are they wasting? At what point do they realize a person is not interested?
I know the Mileage Plus Visa is not the only card that does this (Citi Aadvantage supplies almost as much junk mail). But I cringe when I think about the amount of waste created by Chase/United, to try to get me to sign up for a card that supplies increasingly worthless frequent flyer miles.
How can I get these people to stop sending me this crap? I am a Premier Executive, so United will continue to mail me stuff, but I am seriously sick of the credit card offers. I realize United doesn't necessarily control the mailers, but the credit card company is giving United a bad name, in my opinion.
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If you read the fine print, it blames the credit people (Experian, Trans Union, etc) for sending these offers based on your credit rating. It also lists a phone number where you can opt out of future offers (which takes a good 6-8 weeks to implement, supposedly).
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Rather than rant, just have yourself removed from the lists.
1. For your phone: https://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx
2. For your mail: http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.html
Note that you may find that you no longer receive ads you DO want (whatever those may be). You can always directly request ads from specific companies.
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while you're at it, don't forget to call them directly and have them stop sending you those 'convenience' checks. one less piece of junkmail in your mailbox, and one less thing for thieves to steal.
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I have been getting at least 2 mailers a month from the ACLU, most asking me to fill out a survey.
They keep coming, even though I've been sending them back in their business reply envelopes with a variety of survey answers, typically less than satisfying in their likely view.
I figure that maintenance of my "account" costs the ACLU at least $25 in annual postage costs alone, not to speak of printing/processing costs.
Bombardment seems to be the way to do direct mail these days.
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Gof, thank you for the link to the site where you can take your name off the list. I have just done this for me. Hopefully other people will as well, because all that paper really is a waste.
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while you're at it, don't forget to call them directly and have them stop sending you those 'convenience' checks. one less piece of junkmail in your mailbox, and one less thing for thieves to steal.
I would strongly recommend that everyone with a MP Visa call Chase and tell them to stop sending the "convenience checks." I believe I've had a set stolen in the past (although the checks - for cash - were refused and I was not held financially responsible by Chase). Never-the-less, it has been a PITA. According to Chase, it does take about 90 days for the request to be processed, and I have received 1 more set of inconvenience checks for my now cancelled account.
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I love getting credit card offers in the mail. Here's why: I read an article that talked about how the post office isn't doing too well with the proliferation of e-mail. So help support your local post office by taking the prepaid return envelope and stuffing it was as much crap as you can and sending it back to them.
Usually, I'm able to jam whole catalogs in there and send the heavy letter back to the company. My postal officer thinks I'm nuts... every day I've got two or three prepaid envelopes to send out!
So help the post office and help teach Chase a lesson. :cool:
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Did a search and found this thread...
I had it now. Almost every week for quite sometime, my kids have been getting credit card offers from United Mileage Plus. Couple years ago, I enrolled them to get miles whenever we flew on United. Little did I know what that would translate to. They are still a minor, under 13 years (not even close), yet United / Chase or Capital One?, keep on sending those credit card offers to them. Today, one credit card offer came, 25000 bonus points with first purchase.
I thought Mileage Plus asks for your date of birth when you enroll?
Any idea on how to stop these credit card offers for minor?
I should've stacked those offers to see how tall it'd have been, instead of sending it to shredders.
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Any idea on how to stop these credit card offers for minor?There is an opt-out phone number in the letter - call it and request that they stop soliciting your kids. You should also put your kids on the "Do not call" and "Do not mail" lists, linked in the 3rd post of this thread.
The fact that they are minors does not deter the marketers... they've been known to send pre-qualified letters to pets, newborns, corpses, and inanimate objects. It's all automated and they don't usually check their lists for accuracy except to make sure recipients are not on the opt-out lists.
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It's important to note, however, that some organizations are exempt from "Do Not Call" and may also be exempt from "Do Not Mail" requests : charities and political groups. I think this may be the reason why the ACLU (among other groups) was mentioned here as not 'listening' to the request. I believe Congress exempted them from the law. It's possible that charities and political organizations convinced Congress that to include them would have been an onerous burden. Poor poor republican party :(
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Please continue to follow this in the credit cards forum.
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I read an article somewhere that if you ask the credit agencies to put a "fraud alert" on your report, you'll stop getting this stuff. I did that about 2 years ago and never get solicited anymore.
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There is an opt-out phone number in the letter - call it and request that they stop soliciting your kids. You should also put your kids on the "Do not call" and "Do not mail" lists, linked in the 3rd post of this thread.
The fact that they are minors does not deter the marketers... they've been known to send pre-qualified letters to pets, newborns, corpses, and inanimate objects. It's all automated and they don't usually check their lists for accuracy except to make sure recipients are not on the opt-out lists.
I thoroughly examined a couple of my Chase prescreens b/c I'm on the opt out list and have been for a couple years. I found no number or address to use to optout. I only get the Chase United MP card offers. I thought, like the phone list, companies you associate with are also exempt. Since the Chase offers pull from the United MP database and not the "whomever has a credit score over 400" list it seems other people use, I still get Chase offers weekly.
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If you're trying to stop the pre-approved credit card offers you need to go to this URL:
https://www.optoutprescreen.com
It is operated by the 4 major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, Innovis and Trans Union).
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I kinda enjoy looking at the offers and then using my new, high powered shredder on 'em. :)
I do wonder why the offers that come in the mail are usually not as good as the ones to be found on the net via flyertalk.
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I read an article somewhere that if you ask the credit agencies to put a "fraud alert" on your report, you'll stop getting this stuff. I did that about 2 years ago and never get solicited anymore.
First of all, I have NO CLUE why Equifax has me on Fraud Alert since Aug 06, and wont automatically drop off after 90 days as Experian and TransUnion did. I got a credit report from Equifax last August informing me I was on a temporary Fraud Alert. It also said the temp FA would stay for 90 days. After that it will drop off. If I need to have the FA stay in effect, I need to call and even pay? to stay on... I never do as I dont even know why my name would be on the Fraud Alert List. I thought as 90 days passed, the matter would clear itself.
Secondly, Experian and TransUnion apparently dropped my name after the 90 days. Equifax continues to have my name on - I first found that out in November when Citi called to verify if I did apply a card because of the FA in place. They said my name was on the Nov list. Feb I found out my name was still on the list as Chase called to verify.
During the interim, there are not 2 weeks gone by that I have not received some type of solicitation from Chase - at least 5 or 6 solicitations of the 16K UA business card pre-approved junk, some Chase business cards, home equity loan... occasionally I receive junks from BofA, but haven't received anything from Citicards, though do receive solicitation from Citi Financial, and Citibank... The only true junks that have stopped, are those solicitations of gas cards and Discover card.
The Fraud Alert does not stop the solicitations. At the same time, it creates annoyance - and it does not even work the way it should - supposedly if one bureau has you on Fraud Alert, the other 2 would need to do so too, by law. In fact Equifax has told me back in August, it put me on Fraud Alert because Experian informed them to do so. Now I am stuck on EQ's FA list and I could not find a workable telephone number to find out why.
To take one's name off Fraud Alert, according to EQ, is downright stupid, and potentially expose yourself for ID theft - because the method is to require you to send in ALL your important personal data, SSN, Date of Birth, Addresses, Driver License, plus other stuff, to Equifax - to prove who you are and then hope they would take your name off. Mind you, this vital info is sent thru US Mail. What if the letter is lost in transit? It is like your wallet was stolen!
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I thoroughly examined a couple of my Chase prescreens b/c I'm on the opt out list and have been for a couple years. I found no number or address to use to optout.I don't know if you get different prescreened offers than I do, but on my offers, right above the tear-off application is a prominent notice that says (emphasis theirs):
You can choose to stop receiving "prescreened" offers of credit from this and other companies by calling toll-free 1-888-567-8688. See PRESCREEN & OPT-OUT NOTICE in the accompanying Terms & Conditions for more information about prescreened offers.
So, call 1-888-567-8688 and hopefully that will help.