Discover doesn’t do recons?

[CAS2019]

Was the letter an actual preapproval or more of a prequalify?  I always understood that unless the actual wording stated “preapproved”, all others were only marketing “prequalified” letters.  Am I wrong with this?

[Anonymous]

My understanding is you can usually tell by the listed APR. If it's a single number (e.g. 17.49%) that means it's pre-screened via a soft pull. If it's a range (e.g. 14.99% - 19.99%) then it came from the marketing department and they didn't run your credit before sending it.

Same thing with online pre-approvals, in its online tool Discover gives pre approvals (with a single APR) and recommendations to apply (with a range), and they look basically the same but only the single APR pre approvals are actually likely to be approved.