Looks like at least one credit card marketer has cooked up a clever way around regulations that forbid unsolicited credit cards from being issued and showing up in your mailbox.

Reader Al says he got sent a replacement card for his MasterCard, even though he hadn’t asked for it and it wasn’t expired. On top of that, also included in the envelope was a new AMEX card that he had never asked for either.

“When I called to ‘activate’ my replacement card and cancel the AMEX card, the Citcard employee tried to convince me that it was not really a NEW card because AMEX charges would be routed to my existing Master Card account number,” writes Al. “The literature with the cards also included an incentive to keep the new one: a temporary extra 0.2% in the dividend check.”

All a gambit to try to get him to take the new card, even though physical cards aren’t supposed to be shipped unsolicited as marketing techniques. Sneaky, sneaky!

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.