It is AMAZING to me the steps that credit card companies will do to get you on the hook to them.

Let me start by saying that I don't blame them at all. They are a company marketing a product and they want to maximize profitability.

But still... WOW!

We get upward of 15 offers a week for new credit cards. Including about 6 offers a week from one company through whom we already have a card!

But Saturday, I got a new one in the mail, a new tactic that is.

We recently got a card with a $5000 line of credit that we decided is our emergency fund for major disasters. (For example, living expenses if a hurricane wipes out our home, etc.) We haven't used it at all, and we have absolutely no intention of using it.

Saturday, I got a letter promising me a $500 line increase on a card I had never used. I just had to do a few small things...

1) Buy something with the card to start the process
2) Buy something each of the next three months with the card
3) Make my next three payments on time
4) Carry a balance. I can't pay it off each month for the next three months, I have to wait until the end if I want to pay it off.

Brilliant in a devious way. Get me to use it for three months in a row, carrying a balance. Used to be, that's all it would take and I'd be well on my way to maxing that puppy out. Used to be that that promise of a $500 line increase would have done it too! $500 of more stuff!

Unbelievable.

That is pretty devious. The weird thing is you know they'd probably up your credit limit just for asking, the rules are just there to entice you. I hate how they are keep sending me blank checks to use. I send them straight to the shredder, but it seems like a security risk to send those around.

You can reduce the vast majority of those CC offers by filling out the forms at the Opt-Out Pre-Screen site used by the major credit bureaus.

Found here: https://www.optoutprescreen.com

We used to get at least two offers a week from Crapital One. Now CC offers are (thankfully) a very rare occurrence in our mailbox.

Note that filling out the stuff here removes you from the list for several (three? five?) years. They will send you a form in the mail, however, which you can complete in about a minute, sign, and send back to them, to remove yourself permanently.

I like to stick my tongue out at credit card companies, so to speak. Every time I get a credit card offer, I open it up and go through the papers to make sure it's all blank and there's nothing pre-filled. Then, I gather up whatever other junk mail I got, and put it in the postage-paid envelope the credit card company sent. I then send them the envelope full of junk mail. I do it because it costs the credit card companies practically nothing to send out offers, but they pay by the weight for the return envelopes.

Yeah, it's petty, but I get a certain amount of pleasure out of it.