Credit Card Offers

We have enough credit cards. We don't need any more. So I found it pretty annoying that credit card offers kept coming in the mail by the dozen every week. In fact, not only were we getting our own offers, we were also getting credit card offers for a couple of friends who are currently living abroad and who use our address to receive mail. Credit card offers by the boat load.

About a year ago I got fed up and decided to finally do something about it. It turns out that stopping the deluge is really quite simple. All you have to do is visit this site and opt out. You can opt out online, in which case your opt out is only valid for five years, or you can opt out via snail mail, in which case your opt out is permanent (unless you choose to opt back in for some reason).

That is exactly what we did. We opted out, and the mountains of paper stopped. Well, they almost stopped. There is still one annoying segment of the credit card industry that simply will not quit: affiliate cards. Everything from my old and much despised alma mater, to store credit cards to airline credit cards. Those just keep on coming. In fact, United Airlines are the biggest culprit of all - on average we get at least 2 offers from them per week. Sometimes I will get two addressed to me by name on the same day. My 5 year old son has received more offers for credits cards from these folks than he has received birthday presents over the years.

And so the problem remains. I don't have a clue how to stop this deluge of junk from coming through the mail. At this point, I am pretty much resigned to my fate of receiving and shredding these United credit card offers on a weekly basis, but if anyone has a suggestion on how to stop this annoyance, I'd be grateful to hear it.

I have just one question: do they think that if they send me 73 offers I might open up the next one and say, "now that I got my 74th offer, I guess it is time I apply for this card?" This strategy does not seem to make sense even from the perspective of their marketing budget, but I guess it's their money...