     Patricia Holly (Househunting) | Tuesday, April 17, 2001 - 04:18 pm 
Explain this to me. Have a hubby making about 100,000 a year has 4 credit cards, averaging about 8,000 in limits across the board plus a gold AmEx. Guessing his scores are well over a 700 b/c he's never been turned down for anything, gets great offers in the mail, has 15 years history, etc., etc.
He decides to consolidate about 20,000 in debt with AmEx at 12%. It goes through, they pay off his cards. He gets a letter in the mail from MBNA giving him a 1000 credit limit increase 3 days ago. His balance is zero. He gets a letter TODAY from MBNA stating that they pulled his experian report and are proactively diabling his account because of his LARGE debt? What the h*** are these guys smoking over there? His debt is exactly the same and his overall ratios should be lower? He called and they immediately reopened it. I told him to close it anyway.
Have they lost their mind or am I totally missing something here? Stay away from MBNA. |
| Christine Baker (Admin) | Tuesday, April 17, 2001 - 05:52 pm
A friend with similar credit just told me that one of his credit cards was closed because he hadn't used it for a year. Now he has a "closed by credit grantor" on his reports.
Go figure! |
| Erica (Erica) | Tuesday, April 17, 2001 - 05:55 pm
Just got off of the phone with JC Penney Credit services. Had an interesting conversation with the CSR.
He told me that there are certain factors that go into whether you can reopen an account or not. Prior paying history, prior purchase history and their own scoring model all play a part.
What he said is that if you get a Penneys charge and don't use it for a year, they will close the account and revoke your reopening privileges. You will have to reapply.
I told him that it seems kind of silly for me, a consumer, to hear this because if I wanted to get a penneys charge, and buy new linens once a year and leave the charge inactive the other 364 days a year, I would have to reapply every year!
I also told him that from a business standpoint this is a good move because if the account is inactive for a certain period of time, Penneys is not making any money, and the bank the card is issued on is mot making any money. Offering 10 or 15% off the 1st purchase is a small price to pay for earning interest on 1000.00 worth of stuff at penneys.
The main reason I posted this, is to let people know that once the account has been closed, It is coded to NEVER be reopened again. This may affect the history aspect of your reports as far as having a new store charge every year.
Erica |
| Shylock (Shylock) | Wednesday, April 18, 2001 - 03:17 am
Regarding MBNA probably the credit report has been updated by AMEX to show all the new, consolidated debt but the other cards haven't yet reported that they now have a zero balance. |
| Christine Baker (Admin) | Wednesday, April 18, 2001 - 09:40 am
Re. JC Penney: I don't know WHO Erica was talking to, but her posting got me motivated to call them.
I've had a Penney's card that I haven't used for at LEAST 4 years and I'm sure that any mailings from JC Penney during the last 3 years were returned undeliverable.
Yet, my account is still open.
Looking at last year's Equifax I see that they reported it as open with a date of last activity of 2 months prior to the reporting date and the credit LIMIT not the high credit. Nice! |
| Patricia Holly (Househunting) | Thursday, April 26, 2001 - 02:20 pm
Last week, MBNA sent him a pre-approval for a 25,000 line of credit. Too many people and/or computers looking at his credit too regularly for my blood.
I mean how can he be a consumer to close one minute and then worthy of 25,000 the next. I just must be clueless. |
