If you receive a pre-approved Show MasterCard letter in the mail — throw it out immediately.
They give you the impression that they have done a preliminary check on your credit by saying that you qualify for for an initial credit limit of $500, and may be eligible for even more.
When I was turned down by Show — I phoned them and the first two people I spoke with completely lied to me and said that upon inquiry, TransUnion had sent them a list of people who were considered good credit risks.
After calling TransUnion and finding out that they never send out this kind of information — I called back Show and told the girl I spoke to NOT to give me that line again because TransUnion does not provide credit risk information.
She put me on hold forever and then came back on and said that all Show MasterCard did to send me out a PRE-APPROVED CARD was verify that I was over the age of 18 and had a valid street address.
I have NEVER received a pre-approved card before that wasn't actually pre-approved at the time. PRE-QUALIFIED, yes — but never PRE-APPROVED. And all this pre-approval was based on was my being over the age of 18 and not being homeless. Wow.
So now they have taken my credit score down [I have requested a letter of deletion] and wasted my time calling them and TransUnion.
DO NOT — I REPEAT — DO NOT ACCEPT A PRE-APPROVED OFFER FROM SHOW MASTERCARD. You are not pre-approved. You just aren't a 16 year old runaway.
I hope this helps somebody. I checked online before I accepted their offer and this credit card didn't come up as a scam. Let me be the first to declare that it is.
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