Credit card solicitations skyrocket

The number of offers attempting to convince American consumers to take on credit card debt that were sent out between April and June marked a significant increase from the previous three-month period.

According to a report from the financial news website The Street, which cited statistics from Synovate Mail Monitor, credit card issuers sent out 640.3 million credit card offers during the second quarter of the year. This was a jump of 83 percent over the 349.1 million they sent out in the first quarter of the year, which was largely paced by two companies. Chase sent out four times as many offers in this period, and Citi’s total nearly tripled.

Companies sent out 1.12 billion offers in the first six months of 2010 in an attempt to get consumers to use their company to take on credit card debt, compared with just 1.39 billion sent all of last year. Of those sent from January to June, 71 percent contained some sort of introductory reward or rate, which was the highest such percentage seen since Synovate began tracking this data 22 years ago, the report said.

Credit card lenders are likely sending out these offers because they have an improved view of the national economy thanks to lower rates of delinquency and charge offs seen in recent months.