Saturday, December 7, 2013

Bank closing credit card account for good behavior

When I first became credit card debt free (other than the closed card with no interest), I've been watching to make sure they get used at least once a month. Reason for that is that I had a marketing teacher who was a bit of a sensationalist, but full of interesting and extremely unusual stories. One of them was how she had this credit card for the better part of 20 years, and one day, they just cancelled it. She had always kept a low balance and would go for a few months at a time without using it; and even when she did use it, she'd pay it right away to avoid interest. You know, the disciplined way.

But when they cut her and she argued a bit with them, they simply told her she was not a profitable customer, and she just took her business elsewhere. But 20 years of credit history just went down the drain. She didn't care, as she was married and already established, with no real need to nurse her credit... but ouch. I have this underlining fear that my Bank of America card, which is my oldest line of credit, will one day get closed off one day because I am no longer profitable to them.

To appease that fear, I have it set up to automatically pay my phone bill, then pay it right off before it accrues any interest. This card is very nice and it doesn't seem to be advertised a lot by BOA (Better Balance Rewards). I get $30/quarter bonus deposited to my checking account for making any amount of purchases each month of the quarter, and then paying off more than the minimum. Works great for me! So far, that's $60 free they've given me, and haven't had to pay a cent of interest. I am definitely not being a profitable card owner, though. So I throw in a few extra expenses to make my balance change from month to month, sometimes high, sometimes low, never accruing interest.

Have you ever had or heard of companies closing customer's credit card accounts for such a similar reason?

14 comments:

  1. I have had store credit cards closed when I haven''t used them in years. But never a Visa or Mastercard. I have one of the Care Credit Cards I opened years ago for something, not even sure what, and I've haven't used it in atleast 5 years, I must still have an open account with them because I get updates in the mail to their policies.

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    1. Yeah, I knew about non-use, but never for "good" behavior.

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  2. You'd think the stores would have more interest in keeping the card open - even if they are not earning interest, at least the person is making purchases at their store, rather than spending their money somewhere else.

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    1. I guess that'd be true, but I can't imagine them making that much money off me when I'm drawing $30/quarter and they're only getting about 50 cents on fees, even including creditors.

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  3. If you use your card regularly, you are a profitable customer. Merchants pay processing fees for the privilege of accepting your major credit card. Every time you swipe your card, the issuer earns some revenue.This is why rewards cards exist, the issuer wants you to choose their card, even if you aren't paying them any interest. (Though of course, they would prefer that you did).

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  4. Two years ago Bank of America closed my 7-year old credit card but they didn't give me a reason why. They just told me that I could reapply if I really wanted the card and they would reconsider. I usually had an average balance of $500 but the card had a $2,500 limit and I paid the minimum balance faithfully, on-time every month. They were making a ton of interest off me so I have no idea why they closed it. I paid off the balance entirely the month after they closed the account and haven't had a credit card since. Too much of a hassle, especially if they are going to end up closing it anyways. I don't think I would ever have dealings with BoA again after the horror stories I've read about them. Yikes!

    P.S. I hate Blogger - I do not want my real name shown. Even after I delete my comment and re-post it with a nickname, my real name is still posted. Ugh!!

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    1. Ally,
      If you are signed into any Google account, Youtube, Google, Gmail, Drive, Blogger, etc., you are signed into all of them on that browser. You have to get out of every G-account to be able to avoid it posting under your account. Stupid, but that's Google for you. Try using Chrome for browsing Blogger sites, with nothing else open in the browser, and use Firefox or IE for your actual Gmail account, etc.
      Peace <3
      Jay

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    2. Ally,
      the owner of the blog can go to the dashboard and click on comments. There is a place to delete your comment and a check to make to delete all of it forever. Ask the blog owner to do that.

      When you make a comment you get to choose the name in the Reply as: place right below the comment box. Use it.

      Delete
    3. Sorry. I went ahead and took it down. Thanks to Jay and Linda for giving you some tips! Hopefully one of them works.

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  5. I have just the opposite problem - I have a card that I have tried to close as I never use it but I keep getting statements. They HOPE I will start to use it again I guess but it's been YEARS since I last used it.

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    1. You should be able to close it if so you wish. Then again, I "closed" my loan account from when I bought my laptop about 8-10 months ago, but it still showed open. I "closed" it again about a month, and it finally shows as closed on my credit reports.

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  6. I can assure you that BoA will eventually figure out that you aren't making them any money and drop the card in its entirety. I ditched BoA and moved to a regional bank because they made the requirements to stay fee-free on my (very) small business account. My financial adviser/planner/stockbroker told me that BoA would love to get rid of every individual account they have - deposit accounts, savings, checking, credit cards - and stick entirely with mortgages and other paper wealth.

    Peace <3
    Jay

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    1. Haha. I bet your adviser is right. But I've paid them plenty of fees and what not, so I'm definitely getting my fees back through their own program until they discontinue it.

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