Advertising is deceptive and marketers are ruining your credit if you don’t know the truth behind how credit works. In this episode, Merrill Chandler discusses how you should never respond to credit card offers unless they’re tier-one, tier-two, and tier-three types of credit cards. We don’t want finance company rates. In fact, if it has the word finance or financial in it, it’s automatically a no-go. Get empowered with information so you can make good decisions. Tune in so you won’t be fooled!

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How Marketers Are Ruining Your Credit

You Better Read The Fine Print…

In this episode, we are going to be talking about skeezy offers, credit offers and deception in advertising but now, I’m pulling out the big guns. I’m going to be showing you reams and reams of applications, if not deceptive then misrepresenting the truth about the credit offers. We’re doing a deep dive into the skeezy world of credit card and non-credit card offers.

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We’re talking about deceptive offers and subtleties that because we believe one thing, lenders and even non-lenders, shysters, fraudsters want to dissuade us from the true personal credit, business credit and move us over into an entire realm that is worthless. Because we don’t know the rules of this game, we start and we end up succumbing to these types of endeavors. I got a couple of examples to share with you but it’s not okay. Let’s get started here.

Many of us get credit card offers in the mail. These credit card offers are designed to look very attractive. These credit card offers usually have words like, “You’ve been qualified, you’re qualified, you’re pre-approved.” They use deceptive language to make it look like the list that we’re on fits that credit card or non-credit card criteria. The point that we’re looking at in all of this is that because you’ve been lied to and because the industry has misrepresented, all of these different credit card offers can speak to us in a way and we think that it’s legit. We think that it is, “This might give me a chance to restart my credit.” It’s all BS and ends up harming us even more.

What we’re looking at now is the advertising that is deceptive. If we don’t know the truth then we are going to be susceptible to all different things. Let’s take a look at one of the things seriously, no joke is a typical advertisement but if you look carefully, we’re going to outline some problems. Read the language very carefully, “You could pre-qualify for the Surge Mastercard with no impact on your credit score.” We’re like, “It’s a Mastercard. How cool would that be?” “Surge cardholders enjoy the following benefits: Monthly reporting to three major credit bureaus.” That makes it legit. “Fast and easy. Secure application. Quick response.” That’s easy. “Shop everywhere Mastercard is accepted.” We got to look at this now because as we discussed in a previous episode, Mastercard is a credit card processor.

Banks, in the bottom right-hand corner, just like it has down here if you look on that credit card, Surge is in the top left-hand corner but the Mastercard symbol is covered up by the thumb. We’re like, “This is legitimate.” Guess what? Your debit card can have a Visa or a Mastercard logo on it. Prepaid cards can have a Mastercard or Visa logo on them because when you swipe it, that’s what process, that’s the organization. Mastercard, Visa, there’s also American Express and Discover. It could be the logo in the bottom right-hand corner.

That is what allows you to swipe the card and collect the data, make the charge then some money goes to the Visa Mastercard for processing. Some money goes to Surge in this case or to the bank if you’re using a legitimate credit card. If you’re using your bank debit card, the fees go to your bank and then you’re able to make your purchase. This is a secured card because there’s no impact, there’s no inquiry. You simply send them $300, $500. They make a secured card but it’s not a bank card. If you’ve been to my bootcamp, tier 1, 2 and 3 are the types of credit cards that we want to have, preferably tier 1. This is a tier 4 offering. It’s offered by a finance company and that finance company is tier 4. You have to put money on it for them to be able to give you a credit line equal to the money that you put or a credit limit, equal to the amount that you put on deposit.

Notice, “You could pre-qualify” is the language they use for the Surge Mastercard. We want it to say Wells Fargo Mastercard or your local community bank or your local credit union. Surge is not a depository institution. It’s not a bank. It’s tier 4 but because it uses the Mastercard logo, if we don’t know that that’s just the processor, we think that it’s legitimate. We have been lied to and we believe that Mastercard is what makes it important. There’s a credit repair group out there that does very similar things. They’re like, “We’ll get you a $5,000 Mastercard credit limit.”

Ruining Your Credit: All of these different credit card offers can speak to us in a way that we think it’s legit.

It’s a jewelry store owned by the person who’s marketing. They give you a $5,000 credit limit to buy their jewels at ten times the price that they bought those jewels for. “They report to all three bureaus so it must be a good thing.” It’s not. These deceptive offers, these deceptive practices are not going to help you build a fundable credit profile. In every way, we want you to be aware. There are groups out there who say that the higher your credit score goes, the more offers you’re going to get and that’s a sign that it’s working. If you’ve been to my bootcamp and if you haven’t been to my bootcamp then you need to learn this stuff.

If you’ve been to my bootcamp, you know that offers are the opposite. They’re trying to put you on lists that lower your credit score. Being on these lists count against you and yet people out there, are willing to lie to you. Two facts exist. They either don’t know how credit works so you shouldn’t pay attention to them because they don’t know how to play the game themselves or they’re trying to get you to buy something and they’re relying on your ignorance or that you don’t know how to play this game so they are ruining your profile without telling you that they’re doing so.

Number one rule. Here are your action items. Do not respond to credit card offers. If it doesn’t have a true depository bank name, it’s hell no. If it has Credit One Bank or Synchrony Bank or Elan Financial, those are still tier 4 even though they say the bank on it. That’s why you need to get empowered with the information so that you are making good decisions. I have hundreds and hundreds of credit offers. This is just for one month. These offers, business and personal, do nothing for you. They even send you little cards. Here’s one. “Save $250, Funding Circle.” There’s a little plastic card for you to use. Next one. Another Funding Circle, they won’t let me go. Here’s one, OnDeck. Here’s a card. They send you a card to make it look like, “I could use this card for this business credit, personal credit.” PayPal Business. We learned that PayPal Business now reports to your personal. If you went and filled this out, help your business grow but if you got one of these, Elan Financial now carries the book for PayPal and they report to your personal.

If you’re reading this, you got to see how ridiculous this is. Every one of these offers represents a non-depository bank tier 4. Every one of these. Financial, OnDeck Financial and Funding Circle. Every one of these represents a tier 4 inquiry and many of them report to your personal if it’s the business. We cannot be deceived, we just can’t.

By the way, do be deceived. They want to make you feel special by giving you a personal code. Let’s look at even some of that language. “Two ways to activate. Go to ViewRidgeFunding.com or call.” They want you to use the special number, “To activate, here’s your call.” Then they give you a number to do so. Over here, here’s Capital One. “LendingClub sends checks.” “Would you like 10,000, 20,000, 40,000?” Then you have to input the special code. This is crazy. This is Capital One and guess what? Capital One Business reports to personal. Every one of them does. The Spark card, etc.

What else did we get? Jora. Here’s another check. We all know who Jora is. They’re saying, “To get started now, here’s your special code to put in.” I feel special now. Look at this one. “Preferred status certificate for $35,000.” I feel special. I feel super special. My entire thing came in from when I got approved, it was a $50,000 business line of credit from Wells Fargo a tier 1 business. It doesn’t report to personal. This is Discover Loans. Look how complex that is. The longer it is the more important you must be. Look at that personal ID number. There are sixteen digits there. That’s crazy. What they’re trying to do is if you work for it, it must be valuable. Every one of these, American Express, OneMain Financial. “Up to $10,000.” Express Loan card. That makes all the difference in the world. If you respond to these offers, you are hobbling. You’re limiting your credit profile and you’re getting finance rates. We don’t want finance company rates, we want tier 1 and tier 2 bank rates.

Ruining Your Credit: We don’t want finance company rates; we want tier-one, tier-two bank rates.

All of this can be avoided but remember, they’re going to try and get you from a number of different areas. One is the Visa Mastercard but it’s not a real bank or they’re going to get you a tier-four bank like Synchrony or Elan Financial. If it has the word finance or financial in it, it’s automatically a no-go. OneMain Financial, it’s a joke. Ascentium Capital is tier 3. Maybe it reports to your personal, even though it’s supposed to be on business. We have got to protect ourselves.

More on this in my bootcamp, GetFundableBootcamp.com. It’s always a pleasure. I’m glad you could join me for this episode because it just gets me right here. When you’ve been lied to and we don’t know the truth, we are just doing our best to get by and looking at sources of capital to grow our businesses, to improve our personal profiles, we don’t know where to go. Everybody’s trying to take advantage of the fact that we don’t know all the rules. Read my blogs. I teach you in the show how to become the perfect bank customer so that they want to lend you. I will see you on the inside.

Important Links:

• ViewRidgeFunding.com
• GetFundableBootcamp.com