With the promise of a financially supportive retail experience for homeowners and DIY aficionados, the hardware company Lowe’s, with +1,800 stores across America, partnered with Synchrony bank to provide finance options to its most devoted customers, or anyone at all that needs a hand completing their home renovation project. Lowe’s makes all that possible through its Lowe‘s Advantage Card (exclusive to Lowe’s stores and purchases). Let’s learn about ‘Lowe’s Shopping Cart Trick’.
Lowe’s Shopping Cart Trick
Matter of fact is, there’s tons of perks that come with owning a Lowe’s credit card. There’s the initial $500 line of credit, the 5% discount on purchases, there’s an option for a six month long special financing offer with 0% APR (for purchases over $299), or an eighty-four month long fixed payment offer at a reduced 7.99% APR (for purchases above $2000).
Unfortunately, of the many store value credit cards, Lowe’s Advantage Card is of the more difficult ones to qualify for. This is because the company prefers customers with good credit scores or at the very least fair (+620). So how exactly does someone with low credit gain access to Lowe’s coveted credit pool? How can a person gain access without the associated hard pull of applying for credit cards? The answer exists in an ingenious method called the ‘Shopping Cart Trick’, stay with me as I break it down.
Shopping Cart Trick? What is That?
Simply put, the entire exercise is an ingenious attempt to avoid hard pull credit inquiries when applying for credit cards, more on that later. But like the name implies, the shopping cart trick is a technique shoppers use for pre-approved credit card offers while checking out on a store’s website, in this case, Lowe’s. Although this has been considered a very unconventional method of applying for a credit card, the truth is the benefits far outweigh the negatives, and all other associated opinions on the topic.
How does it work?
Well the shopping cart trick takes advantage of the myriad of offers by companies, in this case, Lowe’s, pre-qualifying a person for the store’s credit card without the associated hard pull inquiry on their credit report. It is the perfect alternative if you have low credit and have been denied before, or just want to take advantage of amazing deals and offers.
First and most important rule of thumb is; if you’re asked your full social security number instead of just the last 4 digits (like this process will show) then you’ll probably receive a hard pull. The last four digits of your ssn function for verification, and will not result in a full blown inspection of your credit report.
How To Use The Shopping Cart Trick?
Fortunately the ‘shopping cart technique’ is not rocket science, actually it’s pretty simple. There’s a few things to do before you start, first of them being to opt in for pre-approved credit offers at ’OptOutPreScreen.com’. This website acts as the official Consumer Reporting Industry for accepting or rejecting offers from credit companies. Next, clear browser history and cookies, web-browsers store information perpetually, so your search history and cookies may restrict you from receiving credit offers if you’ve applied to them before. Finally, you will need to turn off ad blockers from your browser, you’ll be needing the pop up offers in a short minute.
Now that’s sorted you’re ready to start using the ‘shopping cart trick’;
- Start shopping from your MyLowe’s account, if you don’t already have an account go right ahead and sign up.
- Add items to cart, typically this should work with one item in your cart but to play safe keep shopping till your cart is at about $100 (don’t worry we won’t be needing this for long).
- Proceed to your shopping cart and begin the checkout process by entering your credit card details and your address. DO NOT hit the complete order button, a pop up notifying you of pre-qualification for Lowe’s credit card should appear on your screen.
- If it doesn’t, no worries. Go stock up your shopping cart some more, sometimes it takes more than one try.
- Repeat the checkout process by entering the required details, again DO NOT complete the order.
- If you still don’t get the offer pop on screen, try an incognito browser.
- This should work immediately, soon as you get the pop up, click and fill in the required details. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled and only accept the offer if it does not require your full social security number. Otherwise exit the application and repeat the process.
- Once you’ve made sure, enter only the last four digits of your social security number and proceed to complete the application.
- In a couple minutes your pre-qualification application will be approved and you’ll be redirected to the checkout page with your shopping cart intact.
- Cancel the purchase (remember I told you we wouldn’t be needing this for long).
- Await your new and approved Lowe’s Advantage Card in the mail.
- On the other hand if this doesn’t work, wait a couple weeks to try again or go on to the ’Synchrony Bank’s Consumer Credit Website’ and search for Lowe’s. Complete the application from there.
To Summarize
All things considered, the shopping cart trick is a handy tool for avoiding hard pulls on your credit score. These invasive checks actually do a great deal in shorting your credit score by up to 5 points, sometimes more.
So if you want all the bells and whistles of the Lowe’s Advantage Card but have low credit or you’re just trying to avoid unnecessarily affecting your credit score, this is the go-to technique for making it happen.
Good luck!
