YOU know, I was under the impression that there was a credit crunch on.

That’s supposed to mean that the banks aren’t giving out loans, right?

So what I don’t understand is how come I’ve been contacted this week by five different finance companies offering me thousands of pounds of credit?

It feels like every night I get home from work, push the front door open eager to see what post has arrived and am greeted by a doormat full of “pre-approved credit cards” and “no hassle offers”.

That’s bad enough as it is, but I even got a text — yes a text — off Barclaycard on Wednesday telling me that my credit card limit has been raised to £4,700.

I don’t want £4,700-worth of credit, thanks! What’s next? Will they email me? Send a telegram? Slip a note under my windscreen wiper.

Like most people, I don’t want to get into debt, so why do these companies constantly try to tempt us?

I’m pretty savvy about this sort of thing, but many others aren’t, especially those that are living on very little money in a time when we’re constantly told to shop, shop, shop.

It’s all too easy to take these companies up on their offers and before you know it you’re thousands of pounds in debt with no way of paying it back. I mean, isn’t that the reason behind why the world got itself into a recession in the first place? I’m no Einstein but even I can work out it’s not the best idea in the world to lend money to poor people who can’t afford to pay it back.

The worst thing about the way we’re offered credit is that it’s presented to us as “free money”. I worry for those who, let’s just say, aren’t the sharpest tools in the box. What if they believe it?

I do think there’s a place in modern lives for credit. I wouldn’t be able to afford my car or home without it, but there’s definitely something to be said for the old way of saving for something until you could afford it. Nowadays we seem to get whatever we want whenever we want it.

If you can’t afford something rather than save up for a few weeks, or even wait until your birthday or Christmas, it’s all too easy to just whack ito on the credit card and worry about it later.

And all those £50s here and £70s there soon add up and before you know it you owe thousands.

But there is one way of getting your own back on these unscrupulous companies who try to lure us into debt and insist on filling our letterboxes with junk mail day after day. I learned this little trick online.

Every time you get sent a credit card application simply take the postage-paid envelope they send with it, fill it with all of your other junk mail — those Pizza Hut mailshots, the AOL free trial CDs, the 25p off supermarket coupons — then pop it back in the post.

Not only will you have disposed of all of your junk mail in one fell swoop, you’ll also be annoying the credit card companies by wasting their time and money opening your mail.

If we all do it hopefully they’ll stop harassing us with an endless flow of credit card applications - and this time it’ll be 1-0 to the little man!