Bank of America / Fidelity Amex Adverse Action

[Tom Capone]

I just had all four of my BofA credit cards closed. Sounds like it was caused by a combination of AGC orders, payments with multiple debit cards and my recent AOR.

· Fidelity AmEx – I’ve had this card for years. Spent $78K YTD on AGC’s, $38K in May/June timeframe with a few other purchases sprinkled in. Have been paying with multiple TMobile cards, $950 at a time, 3-4x per week.

· BofA Cash Rewards – have had for a few years. Very little activity, spent $1.5K at grocery last quarter

· BofA Travel Rewards – opened last month. Spent $8K including funding some bank accounts.

· Alaska Airlines – opened last month, haven’t used yet.

I have BofA Platinum Preferred status. I Recently did an AOR with 12 applications including the 2 BofA cards above. Ten new accounts including BofA. Credit score typically above 800, but obviously took a big hit after that round of apps.

I called and spoke with a credit analyst. The analyst started inquiring about why I would purchase $38K in AGC’s. I told him I use them to pay for college and parent’s nursing home expenses (just made it up on the fly). He also mentioned that I had been making payments with multiple debit cards and asked if they were all mine. I said yes (they are in family members names – I don’t think they can tell whose name is on the card). He also mention that they periodically review credit reports and determined that I had “sufficient credit available” and therefore decided to close my accounts.

I spoke to a supervisor, who confirmed the above. I asked her if there was a problem with paying my account with multiple debit cards or purchasing AGCs. She said no, but they periodically review accounts for activity that is not consistent with a consumer credit card account.

She also told me that there is a process to reopen my accounts which would require a hard inquiry and proof of income. I plan to do this after I pay down some of my credit cards bills. She said there is no specific timeframe for doing this. She gladly agreed to refund my Alaska annual fee (will see if that happens) and gave me her direct line for when I decide to apply to reopen the accounts.

I suspect I will forfeit any rewards for the current period (my travel rewards closes today), but I believe I was able to get my Fidelity points (>$1,100) applied to my Fidelity account – the transfer looked to be successful online.

 

[pstravels]

How long were you buying AGC's? What volume per month? How many times your CL did you go over a month?

If you have done AORs in the past, and been continually opening new cards...I'd suspect the reason was the AGC's or the debit payments, and not anything related to your credit score.

 

[Andres]

Wow, I'm sorry for your loss. My guess is that they gave you the boot because you were costing them a lot of $. It seems BoA is now joining the other credit card companies in their adverse actions against MSers. Obviously most of us do all those things you do above. In order to avoid a similar fate, can you share some details:

- What is your CL relative to your AGC purchases. I would like to know if you did multiples of your CL.
- How many debit cards "in your name" did you use?
- Which debit cards flavor did you use?
- What percentage of your total credit (meaning, all your credit cards) was your total BoA credit cards? To be clear, I mean (sum of BoA credit cards CL/sum of all your credit cards)*100.

Hopefully that info will help some of us to stay in the good side of BoA Thanks for any feedback.

 

[Tom Capone]

Wow, I'm sorry for your loss. My guess is that they gave you the boot because you were costing them a lot of $. It seems BoA is now joining the other credit card companies in their adverse actions against MSers. Obviously most of us do all those things you do above. In order to avoid a similar fate, can you share some details:

· Fidelity Credit Line was $20K

· AGC purchases were February ($4K), March ($10K), April ($18K), May ($18K), June ($18K). Other purchases were not large.

· I used 4 different TMobile cards, 1 Credit Union card, and 1 UFB card.

· My four BofA CL’s were Fidelity ($20K), Alaska ($17.5K – new), Travel Rewards ($17.5K – new) Cash Rewards (not sure, probably $10K)

· Total CL across all cards ~$400K – so BofA was ~16%

 

[trvl4fs]

· Fidelity Credit Line was $20K

· AGC purchases were February ($4K), March ($10K), April ($18K), May ($18K), June ($18K). Other purchases were not large.

· I used 4 different TMobile cards, 1 Credit Union card, and 1 UFB card.

· My four BofA CL’s were Fidelity ($20K), Alaska ($17.5K – new), Travel Rewards ($17.5K – new) Cash Rewards (not sure, probably $10K)

· Total CL across all cards ~$400K – so BofA was ~16%

Ouch. Seems kinda typical around here.

 

[Tom Capone]

Points update:

The Transfer of my $1,100 in rewards to my Fidelity account was successful. When my Travel Rewards statement period closed on 7/8 (day after they closed my account), $301 of rewards posted. However, when trying to redeem online, I was unable to login to the rewards site. I spoke to a representative, who tried but could not redeem my rewards. She forwarded me to another department who told me my rewards were forfeited. I filed a complaint yesterday with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Bank of America responded very quickly (today) just to tell me the points were forfeited and they can't reinstate. @#$%%#

Next steps? Let it go?

 

[Andres]

It depends. What does it say on the T&C? I would keep escalating it, as I don't see any reason you should lose your rewards because they decided to close the accounts for no valid reason. The same happened to folks back in 2013? with Chase, when they had a 5x credit card. The folks who fought it got their reward money. If everyone fought this on court, then CC wouldn't play this game of forfeiting your points. They would just do like Amex, close your account, but paying you what it's owed. (Granted, Amex doesn't do it voluntarily either, but they do it way before a court case).

 

[smittytabb]

They don't need "valid reasons" to close an account. And entitlement to awards is usually discretionary in those situations anyway.

 

[trvl4fs]

And entitlement to awards is usually discretionary in those situations anyway.

Why do you say that? I have not studied the terms and conditions, but if the bank promised to pay if the customer did specific things, and the customer did those things, I think the bank has to pay.

 

[Andres]

So you are saying that if you spend a lot, and thus end up with a balance of 1,000,000 pts or more, then the bank can just decide to close your account, and save themselves $10,000 in the process? If you don't see anything wrong with this, then I guess we have a different way of viewing the same problem. OP did nothing wrong here. He should get his points.

This is just another reason why I don't see anything unethical about what we do. Financial institutions have been screwing the public for so long. MS is just a way of leveling the playing field. I do understand if the FI deems us unprofitable, and sends us home. Fine, but pay me what you owe me.

 

[smittytabb]

@trvl4fs, my point is to highlight a brutal reality. @Andres, I never at any point passed along a value judgement about that reality. Promises or not, a bank can and will close accounts. What you think are valid reasons and they think are valid reasons may differ. In terms of ethics, there is no collective "we". Each of us makes individual choices. Although everyone is playing by the bank's rules because they do have the right to pull your credit card for any reason. And you may or may not collect what you deem they "owe" you, because they decide that, not you.

 

[gmenrule]

What card will you use going forward to replace FIDO for Serve(TMO)?

 

[trvl4fs]

@trvl4fs, my point is to highlight a brutal reality.

My quibble was with your prior statement that that the awards are "discretionary," suggesting the bank had the right to do whatever it wants and had no obligation. Whether they fulfill that obligation is another story.

I firmly believe that some banks knowingly deny benefits because they know that most customers are unwilling to put in the time and effort to get what they deserve and will simply give up. As to the minority of customers that complain to the CFPB or pursue legal remedies, that's simply the price of doing business. Unfortunately, banks are not the only consumer facing companies that employ this approach.

 

[MickiSue]

My quibble was with your prior statement that that the awards are "discretionary," suggesting the bank had the right to do whatever it wants and had no obligation. Whether they fulfill that obligation is another story.

I firmly believe that some banks knowingly deny benefits because they know that most customers are unwilling to put in the time and effort to get what they deserve and will simply give up. As to the minority of customers that complain to the CFPB or pursue legal remedies, that's simply the price of doing business. Unfortunately, banks are not the only consumer facing companies that employ this approach.

The sad reality, as smittytab pointed out, is that what you, I, or the Man in the Moon firmly believes means nothing when dealing with banks.

Because they hold all the cards. The T and C of credit cards ALWAYS include language that states that they can change the contract at any time for any reason. Meaning that they can decide to keep your points, no matter how many you've accumulated, and close your account.

My suggestion is to cash out or transfer into another form of points (hotel, airline, or cash) at least every 100K points. Sooner is probably better. Because it's just wise to assume that all those lovingly accrued points can be lost at any time for any reason.

 

[pstravels]

I immediately always cash out of whatever currency such that if the rest of the points got confiscated, I would feel that I at least profited.

This will vary per person and also on the risk they present. Amex MR lets you transfer out, so I don't worry about them. But all the others can be problematic.

 

[SOC 787]

the points arent foreited as such, they are merely on hold/pending. it seems the OP still has the option to reopen his accts after a while and thus have full access to accrued rewards.

now whether or not he deems the HP worth the owed rewards redemptions, thats a diff Q.

 

[Rex Grossman]

Did you have checking/savings or investment accounts with them? Were you using the BoA Travel Rewards card for daily purchases?

 

[rajin]

Ouch. This is a bit scary, since BoA is my main personal checking account. I never was tempted to do much MS with them, but the 2.6% card was too tempting and I've been doing Amex cards on that for the past few months.

 

[Tom Capone]

Update: The supervisor I spoke to initially (Terry Day) said that I could call back in the future to have my accounts reviewed and possibly reinstated. I did that today, after making sure most of my accounts closed with zero or low balances for the last two billing periods.

They ran my credit report and asked for my income. We discussed the level of total credit available to me (>$300K, $72K with BofA before closure) compared to my income made the bank uncomfortable. I told her BofA gave me those limits, I didn't ask for them so high, that I had applied for several cards due to travel plans, I have several open but unused accounts, etc. I told her I'd be more than happy to lower credit limits and that I didn't want to reopen the Alaska card at this point.

She said she needed to take this information back for review as a matter of course for reopening accounts that had been closed by the bank and would get back to me by the end of the day. She called back this afternoon and had additional questions about my spending pattern specifically around AGC volume of $50K+. I told her that I was purchasing those cards to pay for my son's college tuition and nursing home expenses for my mother (both untrue). She immediately said "Oh, OK, well that explains that, we can reopen your accounts." She said they would extend $40K of credit and I could split it up as I see fit across the three remaining cards and they would be available for use tomorrow.

She also said that they would refund the Alaska annual fee. I didn't ask about reinstatement of the Travel Rewards, but I assume that will occur.

 

[I Can See For Miles]

That's great to hear. You're one lucky SOB. Banks almost never reopen accounts once they shut you down. Banks blacklist, and that's that. Nice to see it's not ALWAYS like that.

 

[Tom Capone]

Thanks. Now I have to decide how hard to hit those cards. I've already made one trip to the mall.