B of A “pre selected” mailer

[Anonymous]

I had the same offer and had previously  burnt them of 1k which I paid back. Got the same offer with a range from last week and applied just about two days ago and approved with 10k 

[brk1971]

I'm curious as to whether there are finer brush strokes in play here... (as opposed to broad statements like "mailers that say ___ are purely marketing" etc.) - I get that every story is anecdotal, but I'm genuinely interested in whether there are other indicators, or no indicators at all that can be used to help make an informed "will I be approved" decision...

I have received multiple BoA mailers in the past 6 weeks. One contained language I don't often see... "this is part of a firm offer of credit" and 'we may decline you if your use of credit has materially changed since we checked your credit'.  It seems to me that normally I see things like "you must be qualified / remain qualified for this offer" (a seemingly semantic but quite significant legal difference).  Of course, it also had the pre-screen/opt-out language, but that info should be present anytime a report or information from one is pulled. Now, it's possible they all said the same thing and I only noticed it once. But the language seemed remarkable at the time I reviewed the mailer. In fact, it drove me to review an updated consumer disclosure for soft pull inquiries and I was immediately able to see when they did their promotional pull. Nothing had changed since BoA pulled my report so I felt reasonably more secure that I'd receive an approval. (Which I did, and was the subject of another thread last week.)

Basically, my curiosity boils down the same question the OP asked... is this type of offer from BoA 'more-reliable" or not? (Or did I simply read far too much into the seemingly more explicit T&C language?)

[FinStar]

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@brk1971 wrote:

I'm curious as to whether there are finer brush strokes in play here... (as opposed to broad statements like "mailers that say ___ are purely marketing" etc.) - I get that every story is anecdotal, but I'm genuinely interested in whether there are other indicators, or no indicators at all that can be used to help make an informed "will I be approved" decision...

I have received multiple BoA mailers in the past 6 weeks. One contained language I don't often see... "this is part of a firm offer of credit" and 'we may decline you if your use of credit has materially changed since we checked your credit'.  It seems to me that normally I see things like "you must be qualified / remain qualified for this offer" (a seemingly semantic but quite significant legal difference).  Of course, it also had the pre-screen/opt-out language, but that info should be present anytime a report or information from one is pulled. Now, it's possible they all said the same thing and I only noticed it once. But the language seemed remarkable at the time I reviewed the mailer. In fact, it drove me to review an updated consumer disclosure for soft pull inquiries and I was immediately able to see when they did their promotional pull. Nothing had changed since BoA pulled my report so I felt reasonably more secure that I'd receive an approval. (Which I did, and was the subject of another thread last week.)

Basically, my curiosity boils down the same question the OP asked... is this type of offer from BoA 'more-reliable" or not? (Or did I simply read far too much into the seemingly more explicit T&C language?)

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The bolded part is my guess.

You also have to keep in mind, especially for a variety of lenders, when it comes to pre-screened offers, customer and market segmentation comes into play.  Different offers and pre-screened criteria is often used to determine customer penetration in specific markets.  So, the language could inherently appear to be the same for two different individuals, but the results will differ once the offer is accepted.

[Yasselife]

Pre- selected offers with specific apr(only 1) 90% of applicants are approved. Are you confident your profile is in good shape? The first approval should come from you.

[coldfusion]

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@Yasselife wrote:

Pre- selected offers with specific apr(only 1) 90% of applicants are approved. Are you confident your profile is in good shape? The first approval should come from you.

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Are you making a blanket statement or are you specifically stating the 90% figure as fact with BoA? 

[FinStar]

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@Yasselife wrote:

Pre- selected offers with specific apr(only 1) 90% of applicants are approved. Are you confident your profile is in good shape? The first approval should come from you.

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@Yasselife - where is such a statistical figure coming from?  Any official source that backs this up?  I don't recall seeing any 'insider' data (or officially published) by BoA.

[Yasselife]

I’ve got something similar from wells fargo as well.

[Yasselife]

[FinStar]

@Yasselife - I believe you may be conflating the advertisement on the letter with the true figures that BoA actually targets with these offers and the acceptance rate.  Notice it states "are typically approved" meaning it doesn't state "100% guaranteed approval ".  Also the additional disclaimer states "who meet the criteria on the back of this offer".

So, for illustration purposes, if 50 MF members received the same exact mailer, and only 5 met the criteria on the back of the offer and are approved, that's not 90%.  The statistics that BoA is using is based on a larger universe of targeted solicitations, but it's actually very smart marketing to entice an individual to apply -- because who would question the numbers.  Citi and WF run similar campaigns.

[Yasselife]

Good info. Thank you.