Comments on: Credit History Saga: First Payment Complete

By: Organizing Your Bills and Paying Them On-Time.

Organizing Your Bills and Paying Them On-Time. — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:55:40 +0000

[...] Consulting ← Credit History Saga: First Payment Complete How Lemon Laws Protect You [...]

By: Deborah

Deborah — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:46:47 +0000

I get checks from Cap 1 all the time. I also get different types of “checks” from Chase – like, if I cash it then I’ll automatically be signed up for their identity protection, or get a $20 gas card. I shred them all, but they ARE an annoyance, because I don’t want them sitting in my mail box or delivered to the wrong person.
Thanks to all the commenters who mentioned calling to have them stopped! I’m going to do that right away.

By: Dad

Dad — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:13:46 +0000

Certainly try to call them and ask them to stop sending access or ‘convenience’ checks. I think you can also request them to stop sending you any offers. As someone said, it is better not having them exist even if you shred them. I think you can also opt-out of all marketing attempts by them.

By: Funny about Money

Funny about Money — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:37:03 +0000

It took many calls to Visa and Amex and finally a threat to complain to the federal banking commission to make them stop sending me those dratted checks. The lender charges you a good gouge if you dare to use one: for at least one of my cards, you rack up interest from the moment the check clears, so that paying your monthly bill in full & on time doesn’t save you from a finance charge. And they’re negotiable instruments: if anyone steals them out of your mailbox, the person could run up a heck of a bill on your tab.

Congratulations on the elegant transaction!

By: deepali

deepali — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:32:30 +0000

You should call and ask them not to send them. The junk mail is a pain (and not green!). I’d also be pre-emptive and do the opt-out prescreen too. Why clog your mailbox?

By: Frugal Babe

Frugal Babe — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:40:04 +0000

Discover Card sends us those checks.. We don’t get them from our main Visa though. Discover is in my husband’s name, and he’s had the card since he was in college, so we want to keep the account for the credit history. But I have the same concerns as you do about identity theft.

By: Zhu

Zhu — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:32:39 +0000

I hate companies which try to push you to be more in debt. I complain when they overdo it (i.e I keep on getting phone call to higher my credit limit, and I spend like $100/ month on my credit card)..

By: budgets are sexy.

budgets are sexy. — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:31:53 +0000

OH man, i’m totally opposite – i LOVE those convenience checks! I’ve only used them twice so far, but each time it was the fastest and easiest way for me to get my goal accomplished:

1) Balance xfer – I needed just 1 month to pay off $700+ from a 0% credit card that was ending (would have gone to 21%!). So i used the check to xfer and got a great rate at only 3.5% w/ USAA. I then paid it off in 30 days

2) Buying my newest car! I did the same thing, called USAA and locked in a “cash advance” rate, this time at 3.4ish% but ONLY if i used one of those checks.

So i like them – but if you’re never gonna need them, then shredding is def. the way to go

By: Frugal Vet Tech

Frugal Vet Tech — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:12:31 +0000

Husband has a Cap One card and we regularly get offers from them, as well as from his other cards. I rarely get them for my CC – I’m not sure why they send so few of them. Maybe I opted out of such mailings a while back.

We recently took advantage of one of the offers Hubby had and consolidated his remaining CC balances on to one card with a 2.99% rate until the balance is paid off. That cut our interest payment down by quite a lot, which means we’re throwing more money at the balance itself every month. We just got another 2.99% offer the other day and are strongly considering transferring my CC balance to it so we have all our CC debt at that low rate. (It would be even better to have it all paid off, but until that happens, it’s nice to be paying very little interest on that debt.)

By: Frugal Dad

Frugal Dad — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:14:56 +0000

I would get Cap One to stop sending you the checks because they are an annoyance, and there is some risk of theft with them floating around the mail system.