Pre-Qualification Question

[eagles08]

Well I've tried to see from multiple lenders if they have a pre-qualified offer for me.  Before I applied for the Chase Freedom I checked the pre-qualification and it said the Freedom or the Slate so I went for it and was approved.  However, with Discover I didn't have an offer, applied anyway, and got my highest credit limit at the point in time.   Weird?  I cant get offers from any other lenders, and I get a message that they could match my records to any card offers or like from Discover  I get, "Since we couldn't find you in our records, we are unable to provide you with pre-approved offers. But you may still apply for the offer below."  Why am I not in the records?  Could that be holding me back from other pre-approvals from other lenders as well?  I have not opted out of anything as far as I know and I would be interested in receiving some mail offers or online pre-approvals from time to time.  So why is Discover telling me I'm not found?

[trying_to_B_good]

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@eagles08 wrote:

Well I've tried to see from multiple lenders if they have a pre-qualified offer for me.  Before I applied for the Chase Freedom I checked the pre-qualification and it said the Freedom or the Slate so I went for it and was approved.  However, with Discover I didn't have an offer, applied anyway, and got my highest credit limit at the point in time.   Weird?  I cant get offers from any other lenders, and I get a message that they could match my records to any card offers or like from Discover  I get, "Since we couldn't find you in our records, we are unable to provide you with pre-approved offers. But you may still apply for the offer below."  Why am I not in the records?  Could that be holding me back from other pre-approvals from other lenders as well?  I have not opted out of anything as far as I know and I would be interested in receiving some mail offers or online pre-approvals from time to time.  So why is Discover telling me I'm not found?

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this is an excellent question! I too want the answer.....also if i apply for a comapny and im denied, will they continue to try to prequalify me in the future...how does this who cc pre-Q work with all the companies?  eagles08 and can't be the only ones wondering this! HELP! LOL

[flan]

Credit card companies do promotional inquiries. They ask the credit bureau for records matching certain criteria. Something like "People in Kansas, with a fico of between 620 and 660, who have a mortgage". They get a list of names and addresses (and maybe the score, depending) that match the criteria. They don't get the whole report. They can use that information to filter who they market to; they, might, for instance, match it against a list of names that shop at a particular chain of grocery store. How the companies decide what criteria they pull, they're not really going to tell anyone, but they've got a pretty good idea who they want as a customer.

[Simply827]

Well I've run into the issue with both Citi and Chase that doing the pre-qual on the site yields "no offers" but they both send me several mailers per week.

[eagles08]

It's just strange that I'm not in the records. And when I click why it says I've either opted out or frozen reports neither of which apply to me!

[eviLution]

The only online prequalified offer I ever got was at Discover on my 6 month mark with my Capital One Secured and I took it. My scores are pretty decent now and I still don't see any offers and last time I got a mailer was from Citi for the Diamond Preferred about a month or two back.

[HiLine]

Pre-qualified doesn't really mean anything. You can get approved without being pre-qualified. I was never pre-qualified for any of the cards I have today except the Discover More. And you can get denied while being pre-qualified - millions of people can testify that for you.