Back in the day, when an offer came that was pre-approved, it meant just that: you had already been approved for the card, and all you had to do was accept it. Period. Just sign the acceptance paperwork, mail it in, and wait for your shiny new card to arrive shortly.
From being active on this forum again recently, I've found that "pre-approved" no longer means that, necessarily. When did that change?! And how are banks allowed to use a term that doesn't mean what it says? Wouldn't "pre-selected" (or something else) be a better choice than a term that isn't necessarily true?
I think there are a lot of things at work here.
Many people confuse pre-approved, pre-qualified, and pre-selected. I've seen plenty of times where people claim to be pre-approved when in reality they only got a marketing mailer that said no such thing.
There's also the fact that lenders hire 3rd parties to do their marketing and these companies intentionally make it ambiguous in order to get people to apply since they get paid based on capture rate
Then, there's a time delay from when someone may have qualified and when they received the mailer. If something has changed, such as utilization, the offer is no longer good because the profile has changed so much.
Lastly, you're on a credit forum. Reality is skewed here. For the average person a pre-approval will probably still be a pre-approval. Many here are outliers. You can look at things like the Synchrony mass closures as an example. Based on what's been posted here, you'd think Synchrony is shutting down everyone. In reality, the average person had nothing happen to them. It was the people here with 5 or 6 sync cards with aggregate limits in the high 5 to low 6 figure range. Apples to oranges.
@Anonymous wrote:
@SoCalGardener wrote:Back in the day, when an offer came that was pre-approved, it meant just that: you had already been approved for the card, and all you had to do was accept it. Period. Just sign the acceptance paperwork, mail it in, and wait for your shiny new card to arrive shortly.
From being active on this forum again recently, I've found that "pre-approved" no longer means that, necessarily. When did that change?! And how are banks allowed to use a term that doesn't mean what it says? Wouldn't "pre-selected" (or something else) be a better choice than a term that isn't necessarily true?
You are 100% correct. Back in the day we would go online and enter our reservation number to confirm we wanted the card. That was pretty much it. Today, Pre approved is totally worthless. It is just a mass mailing. You then go to their website and fill out an application and the decisions have nothing to do with the offer that was mailed.
That made me laugh!! I'm talking about back in the day when the Internet didn't exist yet! 
(Well, technically it did, but not for the general population's use. My point being that there was no online method back then--it was all via snail mail.)
Because I've been gardening for quite some time (much longer than reflected in my gardening date here, really), I've routinely just shredded any offers I've received. However, the ones that sound really good, I do look at, you know, read its information about rewards, and APRs, and whatever perks it may include. And in that process, I did start to notice that even the ones that said they were pre-approved, in the fine print, they said that by accepting the offer I was authorizing a hard pull, etc....meaning it really WASN'T pre-approved at all. I find the wording disingenuous and deceitful.
In the mid-'80s, my husband and I both, independently of each other, received pre-approved Amex Gold Cards. It was so exciting! I felt like, wow, we've really made it! All we had to do was sign the acceptance form and mail it in. Our cards arrived soon thereafter. This new-fangled version of "pre-approved" kind of sucks, in my humble opinion!
@SoCalGardener wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@SoCalGardener wrote:Back in the day, when an offer came that was pre-approved, it meant just that: you had already been approved for the card, and all you had to do was accept it. Period. Just sign the acceptance paperwork, mail it in, and wait for your shiny new card to arrive shortly.
From being active on this forum again recently, I've found that "pre-approved" no longer means that, necessarily. When did that change?! And how are banks allowed to use a term that doesn't mean what it says? Wouldn't "pre-selected" (or something else) be a better choice than a term that isn't necessarily true?
You are 100% correct. Back in the day we would go online and enter our reservation number to confirm we wanted the card. That was pretty much it. Today, Pre approved is totally worthless. It is just a mass mailing. You then go to their website and fill out an application and the decisions have nothing to do with the offer that was mailed.
That made me laugh!! I'm talking about back in the day when the Internet didn't exist yet!
Because I've been gardening for quite some time (much longer than reflected in my gardening date here, really), I've routinely just shredded any offers I've received. However, the ones that sound really good, I do look at, you know, read its information about rewards, and APRs, and whatever perks it may include. And in that process, I did start to notice that even the ones that said they were pre-approved, in the fine print, they said that by accepting the offer I was authorizing a hard pull, etc....meaning it really WASN'T pre-approved at all. I find the wording disingenuous and deceitful.
In the mid-'80s, my husband and I both, independently of each other, received pre-approved Amex Gold Cards. It was so exciting! I felt like, wow, we've really made it! All we had to do was sign the acceptance form and mail it in. Our cards arrived soon thereafter. This new-fangled version of "pre-approved" kind of sucks, in my humble opinion!
From what I remember. Back in the 1980's the pre approval basically said if your score is still in the same catagory as it was when we selected you then you will be automatically approved. In the late 80's you could do this on line and get an intant YES basically. Today with all the increased fraud out there I know banks have to be more on guard. I have all the credit cards I will ever need. It is the younger crowd just starting out that has to face all of the new steps put in place
Thanks
Mark
@SoCalGardener wrote:Back in the day, when an offer came that was pre-approved, it meant just that: you had already been approved for the card, and all you had to do was accept it. Period. Just sign the acceptance paperwork, mail it in, and wait for your shiny new card to arrive shortly.
From being active on this forum again recently, I've found that "pre-approved" no longer means that, necessarily. When did that change?! And how are banks allowed to use a term that doesn't mean what it says? Wouldn't "pre-selected" (or something else) be a better choice than a term that isn't necessarily true?
I know when I started rebuilding I decided to take all my hits early and close together (I had no tradelines and a couple derogs) due to starting with a measly 500 score across the credit agencies.
I opened 7 cc accounts and a SSL. this was in 2018. A year later my scores were at least a hundred points higher. I received a pre-approval from FORTIVA so I decided to go for it. (I was still learning my way about the good the bad and the ugly credit cards).
So far I had been approved for everything I had applied for. (pretty much sub-prime cards). so with the Pre-Approved offer of 750 dollars I figured I was Good to Go.
Put in my Special Approval Code hit the button and waited for the little icon to stop spinning and say Congrats yada yada....
When the Icon stopped spinning and I saw the words LOL SORRY (something to that effect) and something something about receiving the DENIAL reasons in the mail.
*I realized that day Pre-Approval ain't Pre-Approval and I glared at that WASTED HARD PULL for 2 long years. (It came off in May 21).
That WAS and STILL IS my only WASTED HARD PULL.
During my credit journey and learning so much through the forum I THANK FORTIVA everyday for turning me down.
Had I been accepted they would have hit me with a 1st year annual fee of 175 dollars with a monthly fee of 5 dollars (235 dollars OUCH!!) then after the first year an annual fee of 49 dollars and a monthly fee of 12.50 (199 dollars).
Had I been just starting out I probably would have had to Pay the Piper to get my foot in the door.... (like so many people with BAD credit.
BUT at that time I was gaining ground in raising my credit score.
Since then I have gone from Horrible credit to VERY GOOD credit as of this very month of AUG (pat on the back).
ENJOY YOUR DAY!!
@Anonymous wrote:
@SoCalGardener wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@SoCalGardener wrote:Back in the day, when an offer came that was pre-approved, it meant just that: you had already been approved for the card, and all you had to do was accept it. Period. Just sign the acceptance paperwork, mail it in, and wait for your shiny new card to arrive shortly.
From being active on this forum again recently, I've found that "pre-approved" no longer means that, necessarily. When did that change?! And how are banks allowed to use a term that doesn't mean what it says? Wouldn't "pre-selected" (or something else) be a better choice than a term that isn't necessarily true?
You are 100% correct. Back in the day we would go online and enter our reservation number to confirm we wanted the card. That was pretty much it. Today, Pre approved is totally worthless. It is just a mass mailing. You then go to their website and fill out an application and the decisions have nothing to do with the offer that was mailed.
That made me laugh!! I'm talking about back in the day when the Internet didn't exist yet!
Because I've been gardening for quite some time (much longer than reflected in my gardening date here, really), I've routinely just shredded any offers I've received. However, the ones that sound really good, I do look at, you know, read its information about rewards, and APRs, and whatever perks it may include. And in that process, I did start to notice that even the ones that said they were pre-approved, in the fine print, they said that by accepting the offer I was authorizing a hard pull, etc....meaning it really WASN'T pre-approved at all. I find the wording disingenuous and deceitful.
In the mid-'80s, my husband and I both, independently of each other, received pre-approved Amex Gold Cards. It was so exciting! I felt like, wow, we've really made it! All we had to do was sign the acceptance form and mail it in. Our cards arrived soon thereafter. This new-fangled version of "pre-approved" kind of sucks, in my humble opinion!
From what I remember. Back in the 1980's the pre approval basically said if your score is still in the same catagory as it was when we selected you then you will be automatically approved. In the late 80's you could do this on line and get an intant YES basically. Today with all the increased fraud out there I know banks have to be more on guard. I have all the credit cards I will ever need. It is the younger crowd just starting out that has to face all of the new steps put in place
Thanks
Mark
Oh, it was even better in my case.
Not only was I pre-approved by Key Bank to have their credit card at 18 (after years of having their savings account), but they sent the actual card in the mail unsolicited...ready to use. All I had to do was take it and my license into the branch to activate it. 5 minutes later, the card was in my wallet with a $1,500 limit (which was a pretty decent line for a kid going to college).
Today, they can get away with "pre-approved" by putting the legal disclaimers in tiny print down at the bottom of the page. That way, if they deny you, you're still stuck with the inquiry, but don't get the card. Capital One pulled this on my kid. She was supposedly "pre-approved" per a mailer, but they denied her because of her short credit history.
Times have certainly changed...sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse...where credit in general is concerned. To play the game is to take the good with the bad.
@Anonymous wrote:
@SoCalGardener wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@SoCalGardener wrote:Back in the day, when an offer came that was pre-approved, it meant just that: you had already been approved for the card, and all you had to do was accept it. Period. Just sign the acceptance paperwork, mail it in, and wait for your shiny new card to arrive shortly.
From being active on this forum again recently, I've found that "pre-approved" no longer means that, necessarily. When did that change?! And how are banks allowed to use a term that doesn't mean what it says? Wouldn't "pre-selected" (or something else) be a better choice than a term that isn't necessarily true?
You are 100% correct. Back in the day we would go online and enter our reservation number to confirm we wanted the card. That was pretty much it. Today, Pre approved is totally worthless. It is just a mass mailing. You then go to their website and fill out an application and the decisions have nothing to do with the offer that was mailed.
That made me laugh!! I'm talking about back in the day when the Internet didn't exist yet!
Because I've been gardening for quite some time (much longer than reflected in my gardening date here, really), I've routinely just shredded any offers I've received. However, the ones that sound really good, I do look at, you know, read its information about rewards, and APRs, and whatever perks it may include. And in that process, I did start to notice that even the ones that said they were pre-approved, in the fine print, they said that by accepting the offer I was authorizing a hard pull, etc....meaning it really WASN'T pre-approved at all. I find the wording disingenuous and deceitful.
In the mid-'80s, my husband and I both, independently of each other, received pre-approved Amex Gold Cards. It was so exciting! I felt like, wow, we've really made it! All we had to do was sign the acceptance form and mail it in. Our cards arrived soon thereafter. This new-fangled version of "pre-approved" kind of sucks, in my humble opinion!
From what I remember. Back in the 1980's the pre approval basically said if your score is still in the same catagory as it was when we selected you then you will be automatically approved. In the late 80's you could do this on line and get an intant YES basically. Today with all the increased fraud out there I know banks have to be more on guard. I have all the credit cards I will ever need. It is the younger crowd just starting out that has to face all of the new steps put in place
In the late '80s? How were you accessing the Internet? And which banks had online presences? Prodigy and AOL hadn't been invented yet, IIRC, and the WWW didn't start being available to the general population until the early '90s. So I'm kind of confused.... I've been online since the 2400 baud dial-up modem days, when connecting to a BBS was the de facto standard, and CompuServe had a "dot prompt" for using on UNIX (no GUI).
@SoCalGardener wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@SoCalGardener wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@SoCalGardener wrote:Back in the day, when an offer came that was pre-approved, it meant just that: you had already been approved for the card, and all you had to do was accept it. Period. Just sign the acceptance paperwork, mail it in, and wait for your shiny new card to arrive shortly.
From being active on this forum again recently, I've found that "pre-approved" no longer means that, necessarily. When did that change?! And how are banks allowed to use a term that doesn't mean what it says? Wouldn't "pre-selected" (or something else) be a better choice than a term that isn't necessarily true?
You are 100% correct. Back in the day we would go online and enter our reservation number to confirm we wanted the card. That was pretty much it. Today, Pre approved is totally worthless. It is just a mass mailing. You then go to their website and fill out an application and the decisions have nothing to do with the offer that was mailed.
That made me laugh!! I'm talking about back in the day when the Internet didn't exist yet!
Because I've been gardening for quite some time (much longer than reflected in my gardening date here, really), I've routinely just shredded any offers I've received. However, the ones that sound really good, I do look at, you know, read its information about rewards, and APRs, and whatever perks it may include. And in that process, I did start to notice that even the ones that said they were pre-approved, in the fine print, they said that by accepting the offer I was authorizing a hard pull, etc....meaning it really WASN'T pre-approved at all. I find the wording disingenuous and deceitful.
In the mid-'80s, my husband and I both, independently of each other, received pre-approved Amex Gold Cards. It was so exciting! I felt like, wow, we've really made it! All we had to do was sign the acceptance form and mail it in. Our cards arrived soon thereafter. This new-fangled version of "pre-approved" kind of sucks, in my humble opinion!
From what I remember. Back in the 1980's the pre approval basically said if your score is still in the same catagory as it was when we selected you then you will be automatically approved. In the late 80's you could do this on line and get an intant YES basically. Today with all the increased fraud out there I know banks have to be more on guard. I have all the credit cards I will ever need. It is the younger crowd just starting out that has to face all of the new steps put in place
In the late '80s? How were you accessing the Internet? And which banks had online presences? Prodigy and AOL hadn't been invented yet, IIRC, and the WWW didn't start being available to the general population until the early '90s. So I'm kind of confused.... I've been online since the 2400 baud dial-up modem days, when connecting to a BBS was the de facto standard, and CompuServe had a "dot prompt" for using on UNIX (no GUI).
Actually, it looks like Prodigy was invented in 1984, and AOL in 1985. Prodigy "launched" in 1988. So late '80s online was possible for the entitled few.
Sock - 
Chopping Block - 
Debit Cards - 
