Thoughts on Credit Card Solicitations

A recent report announced that approximately 30% of people that are solicited by their credit card companies for other services or goods have actually made a purchase. At the same time, most consumers maintain that their opinion of credit card companies goes downhill when they receive these solicitations

You know the ones … the “inserts” that fall out of the envelope every month when you pull out your bill. For the most part, you probably just toss these in the trash. But, you may have actually made a purchase from one of these. In fact, 15% of respondents to a recent survey claimed to have purchased credit protection after being solicited through their credit card statement. Another 13% made other purchases on such items as magazine subscriptions or pen sets.

So, while we claim to be annoyed by these solicitations, our purchasing habits have proven that this method of gaining new customers is effective. And, since credit card companies are already sending out a statement each month anyway, soliciting their existing customer base for additional products and services certainly makes sense from a business perspective.

And since sending out these credit card solicitations have proven to be quite profitable, it is no wonder the credit card issuers continue to follow this path. So, if you are really tired of getting all of these solicitations in the mail along with your credit card payment, resist the temptation to buy that purchase protection insurance or one of those god-awful pen sets. Resist at all costs.

For example, no matter how annoying those telemarketing calls at dinner time are or those pop-up banner ads on CNN for life insurance that you keep seeing, why do you think we continue to get them despite our proclaimed hatred for them? Because we keep buying stuff from those telemarketing calls and banner ads. If we’d simply stop buying product from these advertisers, they wouldn’t be able to justify the expense to keep advertising them, and they would simply go away.

So for the love of God people, resist with all your might from clicking on that pop-under ad or buying that limited edition coin set. Please.

Related Posts:

• Keep Your Teenager Safe from Card Solicitations - As the parent of a teenager, you’ve probably noticed credit card solicitations are starting to flood your mailbox. Not for you, but...
• How to Opt Out of Card Solicitations - Are you getting tired of all of those credit card offers crowding up your mailbox? If so, you aren’t alone. Consider this:...
• Watch Out for Fraudulent Solicitations Sent by Mail - It looks as if identity thieves are going back to the old fashioned way of trying to get their hands on your...
• Card Solicitations Back on the Upswing - 2010 has given way to credit card companies coming out once again in full force, mass mailing credit card offers to potential...

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 12:29 am and is filed under Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.