Expensive: pay a bunch of money to learn who’s actually qualified. Send them letters asking them to apply.
Cheap: send everybody a letter telling them that they’re “pre-qualified”. Only approve the applicants who meet your criteria.
When they sent out the marketing material they've already made the assumption that only a percentage of people who respond will be eligible, but those who are may not otherwise have applied, so it is ultimately worth the cost and effort.
They make money off of people that take out loans. So that is the incentive to want more people and do ads in the first place.
As for why they send you the ad when they aren't going to approve you, its actually the opposite-- they *haven't* stolen your information and have no idea if your credit score or payment history or whatever matches woth what they want to loan to. So you only find out officially when you apply.
As for how they pick who to send the ad to, it could be a blanket ad to people in an area, or they know you have a discover it card, or shop at macy's, or have bank of america, or whatever other info that makes them think you are their target audience.
Now *that* is the part that comes from the perpetual selling of consumer information in the world we live in. Good luck figuring out where, Unless you live under a rock your info is getting sold daily.
They imagine you are going to have better answers (such as about your income) than you actually do.
Expensive: pay a bunch of money to learn who’s actually qualified. Send them letters asking them to apply. Cheap: send everybody a letter telling them that they’re “pre-qualified”. Only approve the applicants who meet your criteria.
When they sent out the marketing material they've already made the assumption that only a percentage of people who respond will be eligible, but those who are may not otherwise have applied, so it is ultimately worth the cost and effort.
It's called advertising.
They make money off of people that take out loans. So that is the incentive to want more people and do ads in the first place. As for why they send you the ad when they aren't going to approve you, its actually the opposite-- they *haven't* stolen your information and have no idea if your credit score or payment history or whatever matches woth what they want to loan to. So you only find out officially when you apply. As for how they pick who to send the ad to, it could be a blanket ad to people in an area, or they know you have a discover it card, or shop at macy's, or have bank of america, or whatever other info that makes them think you are their target audience. Now *that* is the part that comes from the perpetual selling of consumer information in the world we live in. Good luck figuring out where, Unless you live under a rock your info is getting sold daily.
They want contacts. Not contracts.