fingerhut companies inc. type subsidiary industry mail order online shopping founded 1948 ; 68 years ago 1948 founder william and manny fingerhut headquarters eden prairie minnesota u.s. owner bluestem group website www.fingerhut.com fingerhut is a catalog online retailer . 1 2 fingerhut was founded in 1948 by william fingerhut and his brother manny selling automobile seat covers . in 1952 the business re positioned itself to a mail order catalog company and diversified its goods to include towels dishes and tools . in 1969 the company went public . 3 in 1994 fingerhut sponsored the 98 nascar ford thunderbird for cale yarborough motorsports . derrike cope started the year in the 98 car before he was replaced later on by jeremy mayfield . today fingerhut is distinguished from other online retailers in that customers can pay with credit and make monthly payments until their orders are paid off . the fingerhut brand has passed through several ownerships during its existence including onetime ownership by american can company and its successor primerica federated department stores 1999 and petters group worldwide 2002 and bain capital ventures 2004 . 4 the company has received criticism for allegedly engaging in practices such as robocalls . 5 6 in 2014 a class action lawsuit was filed in response to fingerhut nuisance robocalls . 7 references edit moore janet january 17 2002 . fingerhut to shut down ; 4 700 jobs lost in state ; finding buyer to save catalog retailer is unlikely analysts say . news . star tribune minneapolis mn . retrieved 2009 01 05 . kaufman leslie february 12 1999 . federated department stores to buy fingerhut . the new york times . retrieved 2009 01 05 . history fingerhut companies inc. funding universe fingerhut receives 62.5 million equity investment new financing positions company for significant growth minneapolis mn march 31 2004 press release . debt collectors real & fake top list of most blocked phone numbers . consumerist . retrieved 19 february 2015 . fingerhut robocalling class action lawsuit . bigclassaction.com . retrieved 19 february 2015 . gordon gibb . fingerhut calls seen as needlessly intrusive . lawyersandsettlements.com . retrieved 19 february 2015 . further reading edit chandler susan data is power . just ask fingerhut business week june 3 1996 p. 69 . jaffe thomas thumbs up on fingerhut forbes january 21 1991 p. 124 . louis arthur m. dead letter days for fingerhut fortune november 1974 pp. 184 190 . meyer herbert e. how fingerhut beat the recession fortune november 17 1980 pp. 102 104 . phelps david pointing a finger at fingerhut minneapolis star tribune january 10 1999 p. 1d . external links edit company website companies portal this united states retail business article is a stub . you can help wikipedia by expanding it . v t e retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title fingerhut & oldid 737534989 categories online retailers of the united statesmail order retailersunited states retail company stubshidden categories pages using infobox company with unsupported parametersall stub articles navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 3 september 2016 at 13 16 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view