Why do credit card companies keep sending so much junk mail?

Written by Geoff Williams
Posted On: November 4, 2011

The answer is simple - volume. Even though the vast majority of the mail is never read, enough people sign up to make the campaigns worthwhile.

Hate junk mail? Often complain about it to friends and family? Then the next time you do, here are a few fun facts you can memorize and include in your next tirade. You're sure to be the life of the party.

How much junk mail a year do we get: This figure is a couple years old, but according to the Center for Development of Recycling at San Jose State University, adults receive an average of 41 pounds of junk mail each year. Much of that often seems to be credit card offers, some 500 million credit card offers every month, according to Catalog Choice, a service devoted to helping people curtail unsolicited mail.

Credit card offers are rarely opened: According to a new survey from Catalog Choice, 65 percent of people never open credit card offers and 50 percent have a negative perception of the companies that send them.

The rate for people applying to credit cards is even worse: A Wall Street Journal article that came out in the last week suggested that just 5 in 1,000 people who receive credit card offerings in the mail reply with a completed application.

But more credit card offerings in the mail are coming: Along with every other marketing item you can imagine. Another Wall Street Journal report, from early October, indicated that the U.S. Postal Service, in an effort to bring in more revenue to counter what they loss from people emailing and paying bills through the Internet, "is running promotions, easing rules and planning television and radio ads to encourage more businesses to send pitches by standard mail."

What's bad for the environment is good for the economy: Over $34 billion is spent on direct mail marketing every year. So if you're getting junk mail, look at it this way; simply by receiving it, even if you send it straight to the circular file, you're helping the economy. Somebody's getting paid to create that junk mail, to sell it to companies, to distribute it…and, of course, there is always that chance that you might want the mattress that company is advertising, or that you might open up a credit card offer and think the rewards points they're offering are just swell.

If you're going to criticize your credit card junk mail, be careful how you do it: Several weeks ago, according to a story by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education which was published in the Huffington Post, 37-year-old Marc Bechtol, a student at Catawba Valley Community College in North Carolina, was kicked out of his school for criticizing a relationship the college has with Higher One financial services.

The college has a new school identification card, which also can serve as a debit card. Bechtol apparently received one too many emails about it, and on Sep. 28 went on Facebook to vent.

"Did anyone else get a bunch of credit card spam in their CVCC inbox today?"

Apparently Bechtol didn't recognize that there is a definite distinction between debit cards and credit cards.

"So, did CVCC sell our names to banks, or did Higher One?"

So far, so good. He is venting but certainly saying nothing to get him kicked out of a college. But then he wrote:

"I think we should register CVCC's address with every porn site known to man."

OK, well, not too classy, perhaps, but kicking him out seems not only extreme but like a violation of his free speech. Then came his final shot:

"Anyone know any good viruses to send them?"

Well, never mind. Bechtol, you're on your own.

Rightly or wrongly, the college saw that as a threat and soon booted him out the door. Fortunately for Bechtol, by Oct. 15, however, the college officials apparently discovered a word called "snark," decided Bechtol had only been guilty being snarky to friends and family, and wasn't really attempting a cyber coup, and they readmitted him.

Still, the message should be clear. Before you trash your junk mail in public, use a little careful forethought. Helpful hint: if you sound like a cyber-terrorist, you're probably going too far. Besides, what some people call spam and junk mail, others (mostly marketing people) call a helpful, educational message that everyone should be happy to receive.