BOA shut down household credit cards for spending too much?

So I got 5 letters in the mail today (3 for me, 1 for my bro, and 1 for my dad) saying the same thing that our credit card accounts were closed for high risk due to spending activity.

I am pretty sure that all these accounts resulted from my use of the credit cards. I admit I used them often but never was late with a payment and paid in full every month. I put whatever expenses I could on the cards in an effort to rack up points. When I called the guy basically told me that I have made $110k worth of payment in the past year and my income listed is about $90k. Therefore, this is a risk to them and they shut down all the cards (apparently, the Charles Schwab 2% card is part of the BOA family as it was shut down as well).

Anyway, my question is if this has ever happened to anyone else and if there is anything I can do to fight it. I dont know why they shut down the cards of my bro (who only had a $500 limit) and my dads.

Any help is appreciated. TIA.

You're not telling us the whole story. How did you make $110K worth of purchases with a HHI of $90K? Why were your brother and dad letting you use their accounts? Were you an AU on those accounts, or using the cards in their names?

If the answer is that you were putting business charges on personal cards, I'd advise you to just learn the lesson and get over it. Game over.

I know i've spent way more than my yearly income on the schwab card with no problems.

they don't mind business purchases on personal cards. I've talked with them back when they would put fraud alerts out all the time and they were fine with it.

If you purchased tons of coins from the mint then that might be what is concerning them. They are worried you might realize you could simply keep the coins and not pay them back.

AbbaZabba said:
If you purchased tons of coins from the mint then that might be what is concerning them. They are worried you might realize you could simply keep the coins and not pay them back.Yup. The CC issuers tend to get ticked off if you don't purchase worthless consumer goods with their cards.

At the first sign you are buying cash-convertible items, they get spooked.

Maybe buying iPods would be better than coins? You can sell them on Craigslist for near-value, no?

geo123 said: Right, my guess is that it's not just the volume itself that caused AA but primarily the nature of the charges. A lot of people here charge several times their reported annual income on CC's without any AA.

If you could post the types of charges that were on the card along with a description of any adverse information that might've appeared on your credit reports (such as late payments, extremely high utilization, etc...), it would help the rest of us.And also could you please let us know if you proactively contacted BOA for anything? Did you ask for a CLI, or call them for anything at all? The recent trend with issuers is to review your account when you call them for any reason; if you have high CL's or abnormal activity, they will then likely take AA and CLD or close your lines. My advice is never call your cc company these days unless you absoultely have to. There is little to gain from doing so.

geo123 said: Right, my guess is that it's not just the volume itself that caused AA but primarily the nature of the charges. A lot of people here charge several times their reported annual income on CC's without any AA.

If you could post the types of charges that were on the card along with a description of any adverse information that might've appeared on your credit reports (such as late payments, extremely high utilization, etc...), it would help the rest of us.

No late payments. High utilization, maybe, but only cus I made large purchases.

hibbii said: high risk due to spending activity.

It's probably due to the type of activity, rather than the amount of it that you did. You probably spent a bit too much money on the wrong side of town...ScamEx is notorious for doing this, and I would suppose BofA is doing it too. Find a better CC company asap.

Why don't banks understand that it's possible to spend more money than you make if you have large amount of money in Treasuries that are paying next to no interest thanks to their shenanigans?

hibbii said: Well to answer the question of what I was buying it was mostly stuff for resell on eBay. I wasnt doing the US Mint thing but rather just buying and selling. I guess this constitutes business purchases but I figured as long as they were getting paid off in full for over 2 years now that I should be good.

As for bro and dad...I didnt even know they had BOA cards and never used them for any of my purchases.

So...how does this not add to your income? Or are you saying you're running the business as a net loss?

Sounds like I'm in a somewhat similar boat..
I had a Charles Schwab card, CLI Of 9500, 85% utilized
BOA card, CLI of 23,000, 0% utilized

I called to simply inquire about BT promos, and asked for my card#. I didn't have it, as I had destroyed it (I wasn't planning using the card ever again unless for BT). They offered to send me a new card, which I accepted, and then I get a call 3 days later from a credit analyst saying they are closing the BOA card for 'too much credit'.

They also said they might want to reduce the Schwab card.

I have HHI of 42k, and at one point had: Total CLI: $54,600.00

So I can see their point, and it didn't bother me too much.. but kinda hurt my pride.

Drouo said: Sounds like I'm in a somewhat similar boat..
I had a Charles Schwab card, CLI Of 9500, 85% utilized
BOA card, CLI of 23,000, 0% utilized

I called to simply inquire about BT promos, and asked for my card#. I didn't have it, as I had destroyed it (I wasn't planning using the card ever again unless for BT). They offered to send me a new card, which I accepted, and then I get a call 3 days later from a credit analyst saying they are closing the BOA card for 'too much credit'.

They also said they might want to reduce the Schwab card.

I have HHI of 42k, and at one point had: Total CLI: $54,600.00

So I can see their point, and it didn't bother me too much.. but kinda hurt my pride.
Your mistake has been highlighted in bold . It sucks, but live and learn.

hibbii said: Sounds like its bad luck.

Does this mean that my relationship with BOA is strained forever? Similar to AMEX financial reviews.

What about the negative impact on credit rating? I wanted to apply for a mortgage pre-approval in the coming months as well. This sucks.Nah. Credit is tight, so BOA is being protective. You didn't do anything wrong. Your HHI might increase too in the future, then you can get higher lines.

Any impact on your credit report will likely be very minimal, and not have any effect on your mortgage pre-approval. Don't worry about it. Everyone is getting line decreases and "closed by issuer" on thier credit reports these days.

flipper54 said: hey, i googled my question and i found you. chase gave me credit cards and set my cc limits. some i was close and some not. i have 5 chase cards. i know that's too many, but like i said, they gave them to me. they shut one down and i asked if the other ones were okay and she said yes and today i got letters they shut them all down. i was never late on ANY of my cards and i paid my 21k car off in dec 2009 1.5 years early. i'm never buying a new car again. anyway, this is the concern i have. i told her you're going to ruin me. if any of my other creditors see where you shut down my cards, the rest of them will also. she was pretty mouthy about everything else but didn't have anything to say to that. she said i can never get these cards back again. i closed down 2 cards on my own. one had a zero bal with a 3k open line of credit. the other i owe 100. i was trying to help myself. when i pay off the 400 jcpenney with a 3k line of credit, i was going to close that one also. if other cc companies close me down, my credit is ruined, then i guess i'll file bankruptcy. i have no choice. they give and they can take. i'm sure i'll be better off without cc's. you're a slave to the lender. i remember having MONEY in the bank when i didn't have cc's. i could have bought anything i wanted. i am moving and trying to get a better paying job and i'll have money coming in. it just didn't come in fast enough. i'll have to wait and see what happens

This is a lot of unorganized drama. As in an earlier post by a different user, your mistake is bolded above.

flipper54 said: if other cc companies close me down, my credit is ruined, then i guess i'll file bankruptcy

Huh? Can you coherently elaborate on this or is it just panic?

t60 said: BTW: Was this supposed to be a question, or did you accidentally post here instead of your twitter account?
Twitter has a 140-character limit for posts, and flipper54's wall of text was much longer than that. Perhaps it was meant as a blog post, but not a Twitter post.

Your spending pattern is considered a threat to BofA CEO's year-end bonus; therefore, your accounts have to be closed!

tazmania99 said: Your spending pattern is considered a threat to BofA CEO's year-end bonus; therefore, your accounts have to be closed!

Thats pretty funny. One thing I have always known about paying cl before statement print in order for a high score if I was doing an apporama. I had some Chase cards cut mostly on inactive accounts. Screw Schase. I moved all that action over to AMEX/Discover and BOA. I have not had any problems or issues whatsoever with BOA. Chase on the other habd is in my doghouse. Had no issues with AMEX review which happened to me one time in the past 10 years. They actually raised one of my lines after that.

I see a credit thaw and realignment in the works. I started to get some decent BT offers this week. I think that by the end of this year things will level off. People with high scores and low util who know how this game is played should start to see some offers. People with lower incomes will see lower limits. It may be hard to expand alot of credit per issuer if you have several cards. I see the card issuers consolidating some of the cards/brands they offer as well.

Rob