Prescreened offer

A prescreened offer is an offer of credit sent to somebody who never asked for it. A credit reporting agency picked the names against criteria the sender supplied, and the sender mails an offer to people it has no relationship with. The statute never uses the phrase. It calls the thing a credit or insurance transaction that is not initiated by the consumer, and it permits the list only on conditions.

What the bureau must check before releasing a name

Section 1681b(c)(1)(B) lets a bureau furnish a report for a transaction the consumer never initiated, and only when four things are true at the same time. The transaction consists of a firm offer of credit or insurance. The agency has complied with subsection (e). There is no election by that consumer, made under (e), excluding their name from such lists. And the report does not show a consumer under 21, unless that consumer consents to the furnishing.

The four are cumulative, so failing any one leaves no permission to furnish at all. The first is where firm offer of credit carries the weight, and it is defined elsewhere in the Act rather than repeated here.

The list is thinner than an application, by design

A prescreened list carries less than an application does, and the cap is statutory rather than customary. Paragraph (c)(2) allows the recipient three things: the name and address, an identifier that is not unique to the consumer and is used solely to verify identity, and other information that does not identify the consumer's relationship or experience with a particular creditor.

Paragraph (c)(3) adds that, apart from the record a consumer is shown about their own file under section 1681g(a)(5), the agency shall not furnish a record of inquiries for a transaction the consumer did not initiate. Nothing in that set tells you who else the person is talking to, or what they owe to whom.

Source: 15 U.S.C. 1681b(c)(1)(B), (c)(2) and (c)(3), read verbatim on 20 September 2026 in the 2023 edition of the United States Code at govinfo.gov.

Two ways off the list, and they do not last the same length of time

Subsection (e) gives the consumer an election, and paragraph (e)(2) gives two routes to it. The first is the agency's notification system, which under (e)(5)(A)(i) must include a toll-free telephone number. The second is a signed notice of election form the agency issues. Either route takes effect five business days after the consumer notifies the agency, and that is where the two stop being the same.

The election made only through the system runs for the five-year period beginning at that point. The one made on the signed form has no end date and runs until the consumer tells the agency, through that same system, that it is no longer effective. Open-ended is not the same as irreversible, and the statute nowhere calls it permanent.

An agency taking the call must say which of the two the caller is getting, and send the form within five business days if asked for it during the call. Agencies keeping files nationwide run the notification system jointly, so the consumer is not repeating the request bureau by bureau, and the election reaches each affiliate of the agency.

What the mailing itself has to carry

A separate section, 15 U.S.C. 1681m(d), puts duties on the sender rather than the bureau, and the mailing is where they land. Each written solicitation has to carry a clear and conspicuous statement that a consumer report was used, that the person was selected because they met criteria for credit worthiness, and that they have the right to keep their file out of transactions they did not initiate.

It also has to say that credit may not be extended if, on responding, the person turns out not to meet the criteria, and give the address and toll-free number of the notification system. The sender keeps the selection criteria on file for the three-year period beginning on the date the offer is made.

Why this is not the channel a web lead arrives through

A prescreened list and a lead a consumer submitted reach a desk by different routes, and the channel decides what you are holding. One of them began with a person filling something in and asking to be contacted. The other began with criteria, a bureau and a mailing, and the person at the end of it has not asked anybody for anything.

It is also the ground the trigger lead sits on, since a trigger lead is a prescreened list built from a mortgage credit inquiry. The 2025 amendment narrowing who may receive one was added at the end of this same subsection and left the general permission described here as it stood.

What this page will not tell you

Whether you may phone a name off such a list is not answered on this page, and not because the answer is obvious. The sections cited above govern what a bureau may furnish and what a written solicitation must carry, and they say nothing at all about telephone contact. That question belongs to a different body of law, which was not read here, so nothing about it is inferred from statutes that do not address it.

A response or conversion figure for prescreened mailings is missing for a different reason. Numbers of that kind circulate in material published by firms that sell lists; they were looked for, and no study, filing or regulator publication stands behind any of them, so none appears here.

Source: Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. 1681b(c) and 1681b(e), and the user duties at 15 U.S.C. 1681m(d), all read verbatim on 20 September 2026 in the 2023 edition of the United States Code at govinfo.gov. Those texts support the four conditions in (c)(1)(B), the limits on what a recipient may receive in (c)(2) and (c)(3), the two routes to an election and their different durations in (e)(2), (e)(3) and (e)(4), the toll-free notification system in (e)(5) and the joint nationwide system in (e)(6), and the solicitation disclosure and three-year criteria retention in 1681m(d). They do not address telephone contact, and they do not define the phrase prescreened offer. The 2023 edition predates Public Law 119-36; its enrolled text was read separately and adds a new paragraph at the end of section 604(c) without altering (c)(1)(B) or (e).