Tired of receiving phone calls and preapproved offers? – It’s time to Opt Out!
Are you annoyed with the amount of preapproved offers in your mailbox? Are you irritated by telemarketers wasting your time on the phone? Good news – there are ways to be proactive to stop this from occurring!
If you no longer want your mailbox filled with preapproved credit and insurance offers, you can choose to opt out of receiving them. The four consumer credit reporting companies (Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion) sell your credit information to credit card and insurance companies wanting to find new customers. If you visit www.optoutprescreen.com, this website gives you the choice to opt out of receiving these offers for either five years or permanently for free. This means the four consumer credit reporting companies stop selling your information to these companies. However, if you choose the five year option, you must opt out again at the end of five years in order to continue to not receive the preapproved offers. If at some point you decide you would like to receive preapproved offers again, you can do so by choosing the opt in option at the same website.
By choosing to opt out, this will reduce the majority of your unsolicited mail. Because not all mail travels through the same mail service, only the companies that use the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) Mail Preference Service (MPS), the mail service allowing you to opt out, will stop. Mailings from organizations that do not use the DMA’s Mail Preference Service can continue.
The website does ask for some personal information including your name, address, social security number, and birth date. If you are uncomfortable providing your social security number and/or birth date, these two items are not required. That information is just added to help ensure the success of your request.
To reduce the amount of your phone calls with telemarketers on the other end, the federal government’s National ‘Do Not Call Registry’ is the answer. You can register your home phone and your cell phone for free by visiting www.donotcall.gov. It will ask for your telephone number and your email address. After pressing the submit button, you will receive an email asking to for you to open a link to finalize your registration. After you have opened the link, you have completed the registry and should print the page to keep for your records. By registering your phone number(s), you have opted out permanently. Telemarketers have up to 31 days to stop calling you from the date you register. Like the preapproved offers, you can choose to opt back in but only by calling the toll-free number at 1-888-382-1222.
For more information on the National ‘Do Not Call Registry’ and unsolicited mail, see www.ftc.gov.
Kari Christensen Peer Counselor I Powercat Financial Counseling www.k-state.edu/pfc
