Lots of Personal Loan Offers Lately?

[jm00ser]

I figured the wise minds of the forums might be able to shed some light on this!

For the past 3 weeks or so, I've been getting offers for preapproved personal loans from various lenders (one being Discover). I don't ever remember receiving such offers, and while reading through the letters attached, they seemed to be geared towards consolidating CC debt.

What gives? I know my balances are a little high, but they have been for a few months now (death in family). Do CC companies send out my info to these other banks because they think I would want to consolidate my debt so they SP me and see if I qualify? Is it just coincidence?

Just curious why my mailbox has seen more activity lately!

[RobertEG]

The most likely probability is that there is some cross-sharing of info provided by one of your current creditors.

I say that because creditors with whom you dont have an existing relationship and with whom you have not initiated a request for credit cannot pull your full credit report.

They are entitled only to your name and address, and only for the purpose of making you a firm offer for credit.

Whatever info they are getting that relates to account speciics is thus barred from their access via a pull of your CR.

They can only obtain access to your full CR if you "bite" on their offer and thus give them permissible purpose.

So-called promotional offers for credit are barred from appearing in any credit report viewable by others.  They are only viewable by you, and thus must be coded as a soft pull.