By John Campbell

Tired of receiving stacks of credit card offers in the mail every week? If so, you’re not alone.

Millions of consumers receive a barrage of credit offers in their mail on a regular basis. If your credit is excellent, some of these offers may seem very tempting. Zero percent balance transfers, high credit limits and lots of other perks may be in the offering. If your credit isn’t so good you may still receive numerous credit offers without all the bells and whistles you would demand with excellent credit.

When you receive unsolicited credit card offers that you don’t want or need you may end up filling your garbage with junk mail on a regular basis. Besides the annoyance of receiving stacks of junk mail every week, unsolicited credit card offers can potentially put you at risk of being a victim of fraud. If a thief steals an unsolicited credit card offer from your mailbox, the thief could apply for credit in your name. If the thief happens to have a copy of your social security number you could be found liable for any debts the thief accumulates in your good name. If you don’t have a secure mail box you may always be at risk of fraud. Even if you do have a secure mailbox, simply throwing away an unsolicited offer isn’t good enough. To ensure nobody can dig through your trash and swipe one of these offers you’ll need to fire up a document shredder if you want to be sure to completely destroy them.

Luckily, you can now stop unsolicited credit card offers by contacting the three national credit bureaus - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion - by simply calling a toll free phone number. By dialing 1-888-5-OPTOUT (567-8688), you can have the credit bureaus put on notice that you will be opting out of any pre-screened credit offers. Unless specifically informed to do otherwise, the credit bureaus typically provide credit card companies with lists of consumers matching specific criteria that qualify for various pre-screened credit offers. When you call to opt out all you’ll need to provide is your name, phone number and social security offer.

If you would like to go a step further, you can prevent the credit bureaus from sharing any of your personal information with promoters. You will need to tell the credit bureaus not to share any of your information via mail. The address to write to each of the credit bureaus is as follows:

Equifax, Inc.
Options
PO Box 740123
Atlanta, GA 30374-0123

Experian
Consumer Opt-Out
701 Experian Parkway
Allen, TX 75013
TransUnion

Name Removal Option
P.O. Box 505
Woodlyn, PA 19094

The time you take to put a stop to unsolicited credit card offers will save you a lot of time and hassle sorting through your mail in the long run and will help keep you protected from identity theft.

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John Campbell is the writer and editor of CashBuzz, A financial portal for the rest of us. Check out cashbuzz.com for the latest articles on money management and tips and tricks that can help improve your finances. This article may be reprinted on your Web site if the copyright, author information and active link are included.