List Credit card issuers that closed accounts / reduced credit lines / taken other adverse action due to usage patterns

I want to add another data point:

My EX just showed "Cancelled due to inactivity". On my wife's report... I see a Citi card closed under EX saying the same exact thing "closed due to inactivty"... uet the TU report says "closed by credit grantor".

She had a different Citi card that was closed months ago (pre-AOR) due to inactivity and in the notes it says the same exact thing. TU says "closed by credit grantor" yet EX says "closed due to inactivity".

I wonder if the bureaus can actually say different things in the notes... or if these notes are standard. So if an account gets closed TU will ONLY say "closed by credit grantor".

If this is the case... maybe the reasoning behind the notes doesn't affect the credit score since every TU note for a closed account will say "closed by credit grantor" regardless of the reason.

Looking at my reports... if its closed due to inactivity or because the bank wanted it closed... you get the same note. The only time you get a different note is if the consumer specifically requests the account be closed then its noted that way.

Thoughts?

whywhq said: I always paid off card before the statement is closed to avoid protection fee. I did not carry balances at all on the statement. the peak balance I have is around $10000, which is close to my cl of $14000.

I guess you don't understand the question asked by people including myself. So I will try to restate it in a way I hope you can understand as we are not asking about your usage pattern on Citi card in question.

Do you understand in the real world people who make $50k a year do not have $150k in credit between all there credit cards. Not claiming you make $50k or have $150k in total credit on credit cards. Just using that as examples.

So if you can answer the following questions. 1. When was your last App-O-Rama? 2. When did you get this Citi Card? 3. What is your Aprox Income? 4. What is total credit card exposer? 5. How much do you currently owe between all your credit cards?

If you can answer the above questions like this 1. 12 months ago, 2. 30 days ago, 3. $100k, 4. $50k, 5. $1k then maybe if you sue Citi you might have a chance in hell wining but if you answer the above question like this 1. 30 days ago, 2. 60 days ago, 3, $50k, 4. $150k, 5. $100k then you got no chance of wining because you are a high risk client, Citibank does not know if you put the money into the bank or spent, if those balances are currently at 0% or 19.9% interest rate and if you make $50k a year and owe $100k on credit cards there is no way in hell you will ever be able to pay back that debt as everyone has some expenses like rent, transportation, food etc unless you live at home and leech off your parents and again how is Citi supposed to know this?

whywhq said: 3. My approximate annual income reported to Citi when I applied cards is $35k and my actual income is around $18k. I am a student depending on assistantship now.

I think you answered your own question right there. Come on You told Citibank you make $35k a year going to assume they never bothered to verify it and just believe you. You claimed you earned $10k via 5% bonus which only lasts 90 days which means you charged $200k on your card or an average of $68k a month. If you make gross $35k a year, How can you charge $68k a month? How does Citi not know if you are using them to laundry money? Citi is going to assume you have to pay some income tax on that $35k also which means you don't even have $35k a year after taxes but yet you except them to believe you have ability to charge $68k a month and still able to service either $12k or $6k depending on when they pulled your credit report from legit sources?

I am sure you set off some major red flag which made Citi super nervous as they could not think of any rational answer to your unusual ability to charge more than double what you make in a year in a month so more than likely they might have even reported you to IRS for suspicious activity as required by law.

whywhq said: I said I make around $2500 bonus in total, which means I make 40K purchases in 2+ months. Averagely 20K/month. Not 90 days $200k or an average of $68k a month

Sorry I thought I read one of your post which stated you lost $10k in bonus which is why you wanted to sue Citi but either way do you think it is normal for someone who makes $35k gross a year to be able to spend $40k in 2 months? Just so you know to get $2.5k in bonus like you claimed above you need to charge $50k not $40k but whatever.

Not trying to upset you but look at it from there point of view. If you claim to make $35k gross after taxes(20%)= $28k net. What would a normal person spend on rent, food, utilities, transportation and clothing a month? Even if you are super cheap and thrifty lets say $1k a month sound fair? Your take home pay checks is about $2400 per month so that leaves you $1.4k left over. So how do you spend $20k a month from $1.4k? There are only a couple of things they though about. 1st you have savings but if that was the case then why do you carry between $6-12K in balances on another credit card which more than likely are at higher rates than your savings accounts as they do not know if the balances you are carrying are at 0% or 19.99%. 2nd you lied on your credit app about your income except most people do not lie and make there income much lower than it is in reality. Or lastly you are doing some funny business and might be laundering money, using a stolen account to pay your bills, going to dispute your bills at a later point as not authorized charges etc because 2+2=4 and not 5 and there is no logical answer for how someone who makes $35k Gross a year can afford to spend $40k in 2 month.

Right there with you on the Chase thing. They slashed my lines and denied my last two apps. All happened this week.

Got a letter from Barclays (NPF Visa). Account closed for the following reasons:

* growth rate of overall debt is too high
* debt to income ratio is too high

The debt numbers they saw were pretty low (dti ~ 40%), and they pulled TU (my cleanest w/ only 1 inq). Not sure why they freaked out. I called, but could not negotiate anything -- rep said I have to "address the concerns they had" by paying down my other balances.

I got the card in Oct for 0% BT, but the CL was too low so I didn't even use it once so I won't miss it. I also have the BankAtlantic Biz card (at 86% utilization) -- hopefully they don't know (or care enough) about each other.

I didn't. If they did, it'd be 61%. When the rep explained the debt growth rate, "according to your reports, it went from $0 to" my current balance that doesn't include the biz card.

Today Chase took my $49K CL down to $36K, just $300 above the current balance on the card. Bastards!
I'm not too concerned, but the fact that I was only a month away from having to repay the balance does make this event a little bit more bitter than it would have been otherwise. I actually do plan to call them after BT balance is repaid and ask to restore the CL without hard pull (my EX does not need any right now ).

My AMEX Sovriegn Platinum Business card limit was reduced from $38K to $3k. The balance on this card was paid every month and usually under $1000 in charges per month. I do have balances on other cards from an AOR but I'm within the utilization limits that are advised. Reason given was that Dunn and Bradstreet had no reports for my type of business (eBay store), too many credit inquiries and too much outstanding balance. Their conclusion is I was too much of a risk. I mainly used it to cushion my utilization. I'm not quite sure what I'll do about it yet but I'm researching it.

EDIT: I'll add that this card is only 6 months old and I have a Business gold charge card(6 Months) and an AMEX Blue personal (3 years) with a $36K limit.

I would like to share with everyone an event that happened to me. I applied for about 20 cards for my AOR last month, 3 of them from Chase. The total new credit limit I received was about 150K. I finally got all cards last week, except 2 that were not approved. Then today I received a call from Chase and they told me they cancelled all my cards, because they did an account review and saw that I had excessive new credit line and many cards. Anybody else experiencing this with Chase?

OK, now I don't know what to do. I am thinking this will look bad on my credit report, most likely they will not report that the accounts were close at customer request. Would you please provide advice of how I should proceed (if at all)? Thnaks.

citibank closed all my cards at the end of last week... Their reasoning was I had too many inquires (I have 10 hard pulls on the Equifax report they pulled)... I have a credit score of around 800 on all 3 bureaus... They refused to open the accounts and were quite rude for no reason... When I asked for a supervisor, I was just transfered to another even more rude representative (not a supervisor). I will try back in a week or so and see if I have more luck, but that department has to be more accountable for their actions... I mean, I have never had a single late payment, my net worth is in the Ms, my annual income is well into 6 figures, and all balances are paid in full each month... I only have like a dozen credit cards (3 of them citi)... And the worst thing is, my oldest citi card was from 1994! So I've been a loyal customer for almost 15 years and they treated me like dirt and cut me off with no notice at all... I only found out when I logged into accountonline and it said my account had been closed...

Citibank really needs to put that department in check... It looks like some letters will need to be written to the office of the chairman and the SVP of that divison... If anyone can point me to that information, that would be great...

Also, I have balances on a few of the cards they closed... Should I pay it off before the statement cycle date? Does it make any difference?

I'm also wondering if I'll get my AA miles for the purchases that I made this month on my citi aadvantage card they shut down...

Citibank just closed my Mastercard, 19k limit. Been a customer for years. Called and they would not re-open. Cited non-use and too many inquires (no new lines of credit -- just opened some deposit accounts).

I'm not sure about the number of inquiries I had. Couldn't be any more than 4, maybe 5 tops in the last 6 months.
I've called and spoke to 2 different people. Still don't really understand why they did it ... I mean rather what they have to gain by doing this.

DAWG said: I'm not sure about the number of inquiries I had. Couldn't be any more than 4, maybe 5 tops in the last 6 months...The letter from them should tell you how you can get a free credit report (because their decision was partly based on it). Then you'll know how many inquiries.

Do you have any other Citi cards that they didn't close, or was that the only one?

DAWG said: Not to sound naive, but how do they have less to lose? Are you referring to risk? I'm 40 years old, never had a late payment in my life, and don't even need or use the card. How big of a risk are they assuming by me having their card? Maybe they don't want me because I'm not profitable (?)...Maybe. Maintaining an account that has no activity has costs associated with it. Just curious -- when did you use the card last time?

Don't take it personally. The logic behind these closures probably comes from someone's behind. It doesn't always make sense. Were the CSRs from the credit management department? Did you try asking for a supervisor there? Did you explain your stable financial situation and perhaps the inquiries? I think if you had no debt or no mortgage it could work (it did for me, but that may not have been the reason). If none of that works and you really want the account reopened, you could try writing either to that dept or the office of the president...

scripta said: DAWG said: Not to sound naive, but how do they have less to lose? Are you referring to risk? I'm 40 years old, never had a late payment in my life, and don't even need or use the card. How big of a risk are they assuming by me having their card? Maybe they don't want me because I'm not profitable (?)...Maybe. Maintaining an account that has no activity has costs associated with it. Just curious -- when did you use the card last time?

Don't take it personally. The logic behind these closures probably comes from someone's behind. It doesn't always make sense. Were the CSRs from the credit management department? Did you try asking for a supervisor there? Did you explain your stable financial situation and perhaps the inquiries? I think if you had no debt or no mortgage it could work (it did for me, but that may not have been the reason). If none of that works and you really want the account reopened, you could try writing either to that dept or the office of the president...

Any idea how to contact the office of the president?

My first AA action.AMEX reduced two personal cards to 500.00. Cards were used for purchases under 50.00 dollars a month. The reason that stated was I had not used the card over 50 a month, I pay in full, and I had not made a major purchase in over six months. In other words I was unprofitable. This is nothing new, but what has changed is the economy. It is a possibility that using a card once every six months is not good enough.My biz cards were untouched. Datapoints.
1. I have not done a AOR in eight months or more.
2. Two inquires on Equifax, 0 inquires on TU, 14 on Experian. (No B*)
3. My total debt over all cards is under 1,000.00!
4. Six figure household Income.
5. No lates with AMEX or derog on CRA.
6. My oldest credit card is 18 years old.

Donedealzz, how long have you been an Am.Ex customer? Truly amazing they would slice you given the info you posted. Makes me want to go blow out an Am.Ex BT - FR be damned.

All I can say as I read these threads is that people are being way too cavalier.
There are experienced posters on this board-- (DaveHanson one of the wisest) -- who have cautioned that the environment has changed and is changing daily.

I have spent a depressing morning reviewing the new Fannie Mae lending guidelines on Jumbo conformings and it's deja vu 1990 all over again.

A few highlights:

No Automated Underwriting System approvals.
*
For principal residences, fixed-rate loans are limited to 90% LTV/CLTV for a purchase, and 75% LTV/95% CLTV for a no-cash-out refi. ARMs are limited to 80%/80% on a purchase and 75%/90% on a no-cash-out refi. CASH OUT REFIS ARE NOT ALLOWED.
*
For second homes and investment properties, the maximum LTV/CLTV is 60% in all cases for purchases and no-cash-out refis.
*
Minimum FICO of 700 for LTVs greater than 80%.
*
One-unit properties only.
*
On a primary residence, existing subordinate liens must be resubordinated. The new loan cannot "cash out" an existing subordinate lien
*
45% maximum DTI, with ARMs qualified at fully-amortizing fully-indexed rate.
*
Full doc only.
*
A full appraisal with interior inspection is required on all loans; if the property value is more than $1 million, a field review appraisal is also required.

It happens that I believe most of these are sensible restrictions. The problem is, that like everything else, the pendulum always swings too far the other way.

And IMO these types of tightened guidelines are not just going to be applied to mortgages. Credit cards will not be immune.
You can scoff and call me clueless. I recognize that a person urging caution on FW today is vox clamantis in deserto.
But I believe that this credit scenario is only just now unfolding.

We shouldn't over-react but we shouldn't ignore it either.

In other words: "Let's be careful out there"

Also - what happens when an account with a balance is closed? Do you have to repay it right away? Or do the prior terms (re. APR, minimum payments, etc.) still apply?