On any given day you’ll find a number of direct mail marketing pieces waiting for you in your mail box.  Some of this direct mail will be bills for the electric and phone, while others will be a coupon for the local electronics store.  And undoubtedly there will be a direct mail piece that contains the wording “prescreened” or “pre-qualified”.

So what exactly is a prescreen offer of credit?  A direct mail piece containing a prescreened offer of credit, or “firm offer of credit” is one in which the mailing list chosen for this direct mail campaign was based on information in an individuals credit report that indicates they have met specific criteria set by the business making the offer.  This business using direct mail as a way to reach its potential audience has purchased a credit score mailing list containing people they feel, all things considered, will qualify to offer credit to for their product or service.

The wording “firm offer of credit” means that the business making the firm offer must extend the credit to the recipient of their direct mail piece.  The recipient of this direct mail piece may not qualify for financing because though their credit score may be in an acceptable range, their income may not be enough to support the additional debt load.  And since credit reporting agencies do not account for a person’s income, a “firm offer of credit” isn’t an automatic approval of credit.  Therefore, in addition to the words “prescreen” or “prequalified”, the direct mail piece will also include disclaimer information.  The disclaimer information is the proverbial “fine print”.  Among other things, it says that there’s a possibility that if the debt to equity ratio is too high, or that the credit score has changed since the direct mail piece was mailed, the “firm offer” is void.

The prescreening works for direct mail because it surely filters out everyone unqualified on credit score alone.  In the direct mail world, if you can utilize a mailing list that allows you to identify a smaller, more targeted group of people, while hitting the same number of good direct mail recipients, then your return on direct mail investment should likely go up.

When a mailing list broker draws from a credit bureau’s database and selects individuals that meet the mailing list criteria set that qualifies for a “pre-screened offer, the touch point of this query is called an “inquiry”.  Inquiries do not impact the credit score of the individuals being mailed to.

Opting Out
If an individual wants to reduce the number of prescreened offers being direct mailed to them, they have two choices to “opting out”.  They can call toll-free 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) or visit www.optoutprescreen.com for details.
The telephone number and website are operated by the major consumer reporting companies. When you call or visit the website, you’ll be asked to provide certain personal information, including your home telephone number, name, Social Security number, and date of birth. The information you provide is confidential and will be used only to process your request to opt out.
Remember that if you have joint credit relationships, like a mortgage or a car loan with a spouse, partner, or other adult, you may continue to receive some prescreened solicitations until both of you exercise your opt-out right.

The Pro’s and Con’s of opting out
Some people would rather not receive direct mail of these kinds of offers, especially if they’re not in the market for credit.  They prefer to reduce the direct mail “clutter” in their mail box by being removed opting out and being removed from the mailing list.

However, before a person opts out and is removed from the prescreen mailing list, they should consider that at some point, they may be in the market for a new car or a new mortgage.  Prescreened direct mail offers help an individual stay in tune with all the options available to them.  And a well informed consumer is one who keeps a watchful eye of all the options available to him. Opting out will take as long as 60 days to go into effect and will last for 5 years.  After that, one may start receiving prescreened direct mail offers again and will have to once again opt out.

There are other opt-out programs available for the non-firm offers of credit.  There’s the National Do Not Call Registry which is an easy way to be removed from a telemarketing list.  This is done by going to www.donotcall.gov or calling 1-888-382-1222 from the phone you want to register.  You should start reducing your call solicitations within 31 days of registering your phone number.  This also will last for a period of 5 years.  And finally, there’s the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), a trade association for businesses in the direct mail marketing business.  The DMA maintains a Mail Preference Service that lets the consumers opt out of receiving direct mail marketing from many national companies for five years.  This will not however stop those organizations that are not registered with the DMA’s Mail Preference Service.

To register with the DMA, send a letter to:
Direct Marketing Association
Mail Preference Service
PO Box 643
Carmel, NY 10512
Or register online at www.the-dma.org/consumers/offmailinglist.html.

The DMA also has an EMail Preference Service to help you reduce unsolicited commercial emails. To “opt-out” of receiving unsolicited commercial email from DMA members, visit www.dmaconsumers.org/offemaillist.html. Your online request will be effective for one year.

Modeled automobile mailing lists defined

Modeled automotive mailing list data is mailing list data that’s been created by using modeling techniques to closely identify the consumers within the U.S. who own specific make and model cars.  This mailing list contains names and addresses of people along with their associated automobile ownership.  It is not exact in accuracy but a computer technician’s best guess as to predicting who drives what kind of vehicle.

Why use modeled mailing list data?

The Department of Motor Vehicles maintains a database of all the drivers in the country, their ownership information, and the current mailing address of these individuals.  When you buy are sell a car, this information is added to this very large database.  Before the turn of the century, direct mail marketers could easily gain access to an automotive mailing list selectable by make, model, and year built of the vehicle sourced from the DMV database.  This mailing list was a great sales lead tool for both auto dealerships marketers and automotive repair service centers.

The assumption made was that car owners who’ve owned their vehicle for a few years were more likely to want to upgrade their vehicle than someone who more recently purchased a vehicle.  Likewise, someone driving a utility vehicle is more likely to purchase a utility vehicle again.

Other assumptions were made such as purchasing a new vs. used vehicle would do the same again.  Someone paying on a car loan vs. leasing would do the same again, and someone owning a domestic or import are more likely to do the same.  In short, consumers are creatures of habit so designing a mailing list to fit a direct mail campaign was easier in the last century than it is today.

Renting this type of mailing list data for direct mail marketing purchases came to a halt in the year 2000 because too many consumers complained that building a mailing list in this nature for direct mail purposes was invasion of their privacy.  So the next best thing was to attempt to attempt to build a “look-a-like” mailing list that accurately identifies the car owner, and is constructed legally.

What is the Shelby Bill?

In 1999, Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), Chairman of the Senate Transportation Appropriations Act certain amendments to the DPPA of 1994.  In June of 2000, the Shelby Bill was enacted restricting the use of Motor Vehicle information for research purposes only.  This means that you can no longer build a mailing list of auto owners using the DPV database to be included in your direct mail campaigns.  Auto dealerships used to using such mailing lists had to find an alternative mailing list.  A foreign car repair center used to using a mailing list of Mercedes and BMW’s had to reconsider their approach to direct mail marketing.

The Shelby Bill DID say that marketers could use historical mailing lists, meaning that any mailing lists created “pre-Shelby” were still usable.  This loop hole allowed businesses to purchase historical mailing lists and so long as the car owners didn’t sell their vehicle, this mailing list was perfectly accurate.  The mailing list was updated with the NCOA process to keep in time with people relocating, but one could assume that the over time, more and more car owners would sell their vehicle and purchase a new vehicle making the historical mailing lists less and less accurate.

How does modeling work?

Another carefully worded part of the Shelby Bill said that current DMV information could still be used for research purposes.  This meant that mailing list compilers could look for patterns within the database of current auto owners and construct a new mailing list that resembles the real thing.  For instance, they might find that the majority of pick-up drivers were men and the majority of mini-van owners were women.  This is simple example of a possible pattern but with today’s mainframe technology, the computer can look for many other patterns that would be considered “statistically significant”.  It’s these statistically significant identifiers that have allowed compilers to boast modeled mailing list accuracy of 80% to 85% accuracy on make, model and year built vehicle ownership.

Modeled automotive mailing list data leverages current auto registration information at a local market level in conjunction with household demographic information.  By doing so, it enables the auto dealership direct mail marketer to confidently target their best sales leads based on what is likely parked in the garages in their geographic territory.

What about self report data?

Another way to identify car ownership when compiling a mailing list is through survey data.  Those only a small portion of the U.S. population participates in survey’s, but when a car owner completes a survey, you can bet that their self-reporting of their vehicle will ultimately make it’s way onto a mailing list.  Survey mailing list data is considered highly accurate.  There are survey’s mailed to millions of homes each year, and more and more online surveys are popping up every year.

On any given day you’ll find a number of direct mail marketing pieces waiting for you.  Some of this direct mail will be bills for the electric and phone, while others will be a coupon for a local electronics store.  And undoubtedly there will be a direct mail piece that contains the wording “pre-screened” or “prequalified”.

So what exactly is a prescreen offer of credit?  A direct mail piece containing a prescreen offer of credit, or “firm offer of credit” are based on information in an individuals credit report that indicates they have met specific criteria set by the business making the offer.  This business using direct mail as a way to reach it’s potential audience has purchased a credit score mailing list containing people they are able to offer of credit to for their product or service.
The wording “firm offer of credit” means that all things being equal, the business making the firm offer must extend the credit to the recipient of their direct mail piece.  The recipient of this direct mail piece may not qualify for financing because the though their credit score is high enough, their income may not be enough to support the additional debt load.  And since credit reporting agency doesn’t account for a person’s income, a “firm offer of credit” isn’t an automatic approval of credit.  Therefore, in addition to the words “prescreen” or “prequalified”, the direct mail piece will also include disclaimer information.  The disclaimer information is the fine print.  Among other things, it says that there’s a possibility that if the debt to equity ratio is to high, or that the credit score has changed since the credit score mailing list has changed since the direct mail piece was mailed, the firm offer is void.

The prescreening works for direct mail because it surely filters out everyone unqualified on credit score alone.  In the direct mail world, if you can utilize a mailing list that allows you to direct mail to less people, while hitting the same number of good direct mail recipients, you’re return on direct mail investment goes up.

Since there are no “inquires” on your credit report showing which companies obtained your information for prescreening, when a mailing list broker pulls your name for a direct mail campaign making a firm offer of credit, your actual credit score is not negatively affected.

Opting Out
If an individual wants to reduce the number of prescreened offers being direct mailed to them, they have two choices to “opting out”.  They can call toll-free 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) or visit www.optoutprescreen.com for details.
The telephone number and website are operated by the major consumer reporting companies. When you call or visit the website, you’ll be asked to provide certain personal information, including your home telephone number, name, Social Security number, and date of birth. The information you provide is confidential and will be used only to process your request to opt out.
Remember that if you have joint credit relationships, like a mortgage or a car loan with a spouse, partner, or other adult, you may continue to receive some prescreened solicitations until both of you exercise your opt-out right.

The Pro’s and Con’s of opting out
Some people would rather not receive direct mail of these kinds of offer, especially if they’re not in the market for credit.  They prefer to reduce the direct mail “clutter” in their mail box by being removed opting out and being removed from the mailing list.
However, before a person opts out and is removed from the prescreen mailing list, they should consider that at some point, they may be in the market for a new car or a new mortgage.  Prescreened direct mail offers help an individual stay in tune with all the options available to them.  And a well informed consumer is one who keeps a watchful eye of all the options available to him. Opting out will take as long as 60 days to go into effect and will last for 5 years.  After that, one may start receiving prescreened direct mail offers again and will have to once again opt out.

There are other opt-out programs available for the non-firm offers of credit.  There’s the National Do Not Call Registry which is an easy way to be removed from a telemarketing list.  This is done by going to www.donotcall.gov or calling 1-888-382-1222 from the phone you want to register.  You should start reducing your call solicitations within 31 days of registering your phone number.  This also will last for a period of 5 years.  And finally, there’s the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), a trade association for businesses in the direct mail marketing business.  The DMA maintains a Mail Preference Service that lets the consumers opt out of receiving direct mail marketing from many national companies for five years.  This will not however stop those organizations that are not registered with the DMA’s Mail Preference Service.  To register with the DMA, send a letter to:
Direct Marketing Association
Mail Preference Service
PO Box 643
Carmel, NY 10512
Or register online at www.the-dma.org/consumers/offmailinglist.html.
The DMA also has an EMail Preference Service to help you reduce unsolicited commercial emails. To “opt-out” of receiving unsolicited commercial email from DMA members, visit www.dmaconsumers.org/offemaillist.html. Your online request will be effective for one year.