How to Get a One Pound Bag of Candy for Free: a Great Credit Card Deal
Contributed by Boo Roberts
What comprises a great credit card deal?
When I was in college, you could get a great credit card deal from representatives who would come to the campus, and set themselves up in a certain area to attract the most foot traffic. This area was the walkway from the business building to the campus center. Along this walkway tables would be set up (usually on Fridays) where you could purchase any number of items. Vendors would sell t-shirts, or jackets, or just about anything tye-dyed (which always goes over well with the college-age crowd).
Next to the vendors would be the credit card company representatives, enticing you to fill out their credit card applications by offering free incentives. To the hungry college student, this would be the ultimate credit card deal: to get a one pound bag of candy (sometimes M & Ms) by filling out a simple application. Little did we know what exactly this great credit card deal would actually entail.
Who really benefits from this credit card deal?
To the unwary passerby (and the uninitiated, like me) this credit card deal of a free bag of candy was not really the great credit card deal it was cracked up to be. For starters, every time you apply for a credit card, that counts in your credit report. If you apply for a lot of credit cards, which supposedly offer a great credit card deal, then that shows up in your credit report too. It really hurts you if you are denied for a lot of the credit cards, something I had no idea about.
