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I was wondering if anyone else rebuilding with BK are now receiving pre approvals. I will be 2 years post bk in April and I only receive offers for auto loans and pre paid card in the mail. I even tried the shopping cart trick and no go! People with bk less than a year are getting pre approval. I also made sure all my reports are not locked and I opt in for pre screening.
I don't know how well opting out works. I'm opted out and I haven't received any cc offers, but get at least 4-5 auto loan offers per week. I still even get auto offers from the company I actually bought a car from! I think maybe the car dealers get your info from the court rather than the CRAs.
I have only had offers for Credit One and First Premier. I didn't even open them. I had to create my own offer. I went to my local credit union and PNC to open secured cards the day my bankruptcy was discharged in February 2012. After 6 months, I tried to get unsecured cards with them and was successful with credit union. I went on to an Apple card and a Barnes and Noble card from Barclays.
You should really try your local credit union. I'm paying 10.99 on my credit union visa.
Back in the day, I'd get HSBC (Orchard Bank, Discover etc) offers weekly. Since they moved over to CapOne, not sure how their marketing is anymore. At the one year mark I got a CapOne offer and year 2 I got a Juniper Barclays card. I found it much easier to take control of your own situation and look through some BK Friemndly creditors threads and see which ones will approve at what time. As your BK ages (I will hit 7 years within the next 2 weeks), you'll realize that you qualify for a whole lot more each year. Fortunately for me, I've been able to get rid of all my toy limit cards and the only one I technically kept (Juniper) I was able to convert into a Barclaycard Rewards MC.
I think it really depends on what is on your credit report. I discharged a BK last August... so I am only 6 months out, but I immediately started getting pre approvals for first Premier and Capital One., then I did the shopping cart trick and I got Finger Hut and HSN. I have applied for several GEMB and Comeity Cards and gotten a bunch of them. I also go a Barclays MC card. But some companies will not work with me because I have a 100 year old tax lien on my credit report. And Target says I have too many deliquents reported. I am just starting to dispute stuff on my credit report that is reporting incorrectly, so I hope to change this.
Do you have serious Derogatory marks? That could be it...
Their are different flavors of "pre-approval" offers.
The more-solid type is one that is sent under FCRA 604(c).
Those are "firm offers for credit" and not just junk mail.
A creditor can submit a request to a CRA for a listing of consumers who meet certain preset criteria.
The CRAs are permitted to provide creditors with listings of consumers who meet the stated ciriteria, but the CRAs cannot provide them any account-specific information from your credit file, or cannot include you in any listing if you have an "opt-out" request in effect.
If a creditor gets a listing from a CRA, they are required to make a firm offer for credit to all on that listing.
A firm offer does not assure approval. If the consumer then submits an application in response to the firm offer, the creditor than has permissible purpose to pull their entire credit report. If the information has changed from when they received their listing, or anything in the report shows that the consumer does not actually meet the set criteria, they do not have to grant. Otherwise, they must grant the firm offer.
You may not meet the criteria provided to the CRA when they request their listing, and thus are not getting firm offers.
A credtior can, of course, solicit offers for credit from other information without obtaining a listing from a CRA.
However, without advanage of the pre-scrrening of your credit file afforded by the section 604(c) listing, they are highly unlikelu, and not required to, make what the FCRA clearly defines as a "firm offer" for credit. Their "pre-approved" statement may only be a come-on to get you to apply, thus givng them permissible purpose to pull your full CR, with no obligation to then make a firm offer.
If an offer is made as a result of your name being obtaned from a CRA listing, the offer must state that fact. Thus, you can tell whether they have obligation to honor their offer if you are found to meet their preset criteria.
Interesting! Thanks for that explanation.