Finally received a letter from Barclays regarding Juniper credit line decrease.
Interesting excerpt:

We have recently reviewed your account history. As a result of our findings, we requested additional information about your credit from an independent customer credit-reporting agency. Unfortunately, due to the following reasons, we have decreased your credit line to $13,350.00 effective immediately:

Growth Rate Of Overall Debt Is Too High
Recent Increase In Use Of Revolving Credit

This implies that they wouldn't have pulled my report if my balance wasn't high, as I have no other account history to speak of.

One odd note: the letter says they pulled TU for this, and maybe they did (I can't see softs).
Makes me wonder why they also pulled EQ, hard, twice...

GOSH, reduction from $15,000 to $300 is more than "minor." Do you have others to cancel it? From what I understand after a reduction it will take many months to get a reasonable CLI.

cashmonkey said:Update:

Minor adverse action from Juniper, as seen by many others:
They reduced my $15k line to $300 above my current $13k balance.
I haven't received any letters or anything, just noticed it through Yodlee.

Thankfully they did this after the statement posted, so my credit reports don't show 98% utilization on this line.
I guess I'll pay down to 89%.. and then they'll probably repeat the process. Oh well.


In other news, I've bumped off all my TU inquiries with PM123 and CreditKarma.
Especially happy about this since Citi pulls TU for me and they've been very inquiry sensitive lately.

edit: added links

Barklays/Juniper pulled TU on the app date, and then TU and EQ two weeks after. What really pissed me off is that the last two pulls were done AFTER they declined my application.

A word of warning about Experian security freezes:
I tried to place a freeze online, which first asks for personal information, then for credit card info, then for identification verification. After the third step, I received an error message ("We cannot honor your request.."), so I tried several times, using variations of my previous addresses. Each time failed.

I now have five $10 charges from Experian on my debit card statement.
(I figured hey, I'll use this to fulfill my rewards checking requirements!)

Speaking with a real person at Experian is nigh on impossible.
Their credit monitoring service people say this charge came directly from the bureau and they don't have any direct numbers.
Their corporate numbers have horrible secretaries who won't even listen to a complete sentence before transferring you off.

So now I'm disputing through my credit union, which will involve a detailed, notarized letter.. fun fun fun.

Edit: There is a way to reach a helpful human at Experian!
Call the number on your credit report. You will probably need to have a recent report (they ask for the report number), but in my case, the phone number was 800 493 1058.

I was able to place the security freeze over the phone (by paying another $10, yay, this time on a credit card).
They told me I will receive a PIN for unlocking/removing the freeze by mail in a few days.

To get the $50 refunded, they request that I send my bank statement, name, address, SSN, drivers license and utility bill copy to their refund department. In case anyone else runs into this, the refund department address is PO Box 881, Allen TX 75013

A "funny" thing about US Bank, in my case, was that the credit line showed up a few days after I activated the card (and automatically initiated the BT out), kinda nasty because it shows a balance of $19.5 on a $20.5 CL (it was me who asked for a $19.5 BT). I surely hope that the BT will soon reach the destination card.
How much time did it take for your BT from US Bank to reach the destination card?

I applied on 2/24 with $17k BT request to BofA, was approved on 2/28, and the BT posted on my BofA account on 3/10.

cashmonkey said:Called yesterday (Sunday) to consolidate an older BofA line onto my NEA card in preparation for an additional 0% BT. The CSR seemed competent.

Haven't you BT's enough already? I thought were already at 120K revolving debt, which is already way higher than your annual income.

cashmonkey said:With payments I'm now down to about 115k, and I'm planning to get another 10k from BofA soon.

I have yet to see any evidence for debt-to-income ratios being the initial cause of adverse action. Perhaps the models aren't sophisticated enough or they don't integrate credit report updates with initial application information. But hey, if they flag me, I'll let you know.

Ok, so maybe I overdid it on the warnings of not showing too much card debt relative to your annual income. Yet, we've seen recent adverse action against people who went up over 50%, and so far you barley got dinged going over 100%. Maybe utilization is a better measure.

I personally just balance transferred $28,000 which I still could have had on 0% for 7 more months because I was concerned I would go over 50% of my annual income in card debt. I was probably being too cautious.

No, the rep was just trying to hit his quota for BT deals. The department that does account reviews and adverse action is totally seperate.

However, in my opinion, you can't do an AOR without breaking a few eggs. You just have to keep the breakage manageable.

markkundinger said:No, the rep was just trying to hit his quota for BT deals. The department that does account reviews and adverse action is totally seperate.

However, in my opinion, you can't do an AOR without breaking a few eggs. You just have to keep the breakage manageable.

Thanks, I see the light now. Getting a credit limit reduced or an account closed wouldn't be the end of the world if I made an extra thousand dollars or so in profit.

Another Bank of America rep told me the National Education Association card has a special agreement with the NEA. BofA is not allowed to charge punitive rates, must cap all balance transfer fees at $30, and has a maximum rate of (prime?) plus 2% (now 7.99%). Forever.

Get this card!