Reader Todd decided to call Bank of America up to test whether our story “BoA Closes Your Credit Cards If You Ask Why They Increased Your APR” was really true or not. Turns out, it is.
I called today, asked if I could know my current interest rate, was put on hold for a “supervisor”. Within 5 minutes I was on the phone with the next person. She informed me that I would have to speak with a specialist, and gave me the direct number in case I was disconnected. After waiting on hold for 40 minutes, the third person in the chain comes online. He asks me several questions such as, “Do you have a job?” and so on. Then tells me to hold while he “looks into my account”. 20 minutes later, he comes back. Informs me that both of my accounts are now being closed because of a “perceived risk” and there is nothing they can do for me.
What gives with this? This makes ZERO sense to me. I have had my accounts for nearly ten years, been late once on one of the accounts, otherwise always paid on time and extra. I typically run $30k balances and have no problem paying them. But I ask for my interest rate and I am suddenly too risky to even remain an active customer?
Considering the way things are going over there, maybe they did you a favor.
PREVIOUSLY: BoA Closes Your Credit Cards If You Ask Why They Increased Your APR
(Photo: Getty)
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@MissGayle: On BoA’s website you can see it by downloading your statement in PDF format. The PDF statements are exact replicas of the paper ones.
I was the one who wrote in a couple of weeks ago. Just as a follow up, I wrote a letter to Kenneth Lewis about the matter and received phone calls from two different people – one from consumer credit and one from executive customer service. Neither one could/would help, saying that the closing of the account was “a business decision”. Because of having to sell a house at less than the mortgage value a couple of years ago, I had transferred a big chunk of debt to MBNA (now BoA). All told, BoA had extended me credit in excess of $90,000 and I was never within striking distance of that limit. I never missed a payment and I was a customer since 1990. Because of their unwillingness to help, I have now moved one account to a 3.9% lifetime interest rate with another bank. Honestly, I am at a loss as to how closing my accounts would make them more money, but that obviously wasn’t an issue. Below is my email to Ken Lewis after their final kiss off.
Dear Mr. Lewis,
As a follow up to my letter of two weeks ago, I am disappointed to report that no one was able to achieve a satisfactory solution to my problem. I am disheartened that Bank of America would so casually throw away such a long and profitable relationship, but I understand that no one in your company has the ability to change a decision once it has been made. Thank you for your efforts in this matter.
——————————————————————————–
From: xxxx
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 1:32 PM
To: Case, Daphne A
Subject: RE: Credit account closure
Daphne,
Thank you for the quick response. Obviously, as a customer of nearly twenty years, this is not the result I wanted or expected. I will be moving my business to other accounts as soon as possible, including transferring the full balance on the Gold Option account today. Note that this will bring my debt to credit limit ratio to approximately 60% for my Bank of America accounts. If this amount of debt is of concern to BoA, then it would probably be advisable for you not to extend such high credit limits to customers in the future. Please be sure to take my name off your mailing list, as I continue to receive balance transfer offers from your company that are clearly fraudulent given the fact that you have closed my accounts to new charges. I will, of course, no longer be doing business with your company once my accounts have been paid.
——————————————————————————–
From: Case, Daphne A [mailto:daphne.a.case@bankofamerica.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 12:02 PM
To: xxxx
Subject: RE: Credit account closure
Dear Mr. xxxx,
Regrettably, we are unable to reopen your accounts for usage due to the amount of debt on your accounts and with other creditors. The accounts are closed to charging privileges but the accounts are not reporting negatively to the national credit bureau reporting agencies. This is a business decision and will not be altered. We may review the accounts again in the future if your overall debt has substantially decreased.
Sincerely,
Daphne A. Case
Bank of America
Customer Advocate
Card Executive Relations – Office of the Chairman
Office: 602.597.3329
Fax: 214.416.0848
daphne.a.case@bankofamerica.com
BoA is weird to me, I see so many “I got hosed” stories about them, never had anything bad happen to me. I even asked them to raise my credit limit recently and they happily obliged. Even my business account was a pleasent experience. My only one real bitch is that my local branch almost never answers their damned phone and has no voicemail, just tells you try again later…
@johnva: I did not know that.
Thank goodness. I assumed that they couldn’t because it would make BofA even more evil.
BoA hiked my APR without any reason a few months ago. I had done a balance transfer onto their card with the terms being such-and-such APR for the life of the balance. Never was late with my payments or anything. I called them, asked why, they said, “Such a deal never existed,” despite my having paperwork proving it. I told them to cancel my account and, amazingly, they did. Didn’t even TRY to keep me as a customer.
Good job, BoA. You suck.
Awesome! I’ve been meaning to close my BOA account. Now I know how!
BofA has not changed in 40 years. At that time they continued to deny my aunt a credit card because she had no established credit, she was an immigrant. Still, she and her husband were working, they had $10000 on deposit with BofA, they had paid cash for their home and car, and BofA was collecting money on the mortgage for another house she and her husband had sold. What is happening now is not unique with BofA. My son’s American Express was cancelled because he asked for a credit line increase, although he had never defaulted on a single payment and has a credit score in the 700s. I was refused a credit increase by Capital One even though I also have tens of thousands on deposit with them. The banks’ credit divisions seem to be completely separate from the savings divisions and no matter how much deposit you have in savings, the credit division will ignore it.
And this is why I keep all of my credit card accounts with Wachovia, where I have multiple other accounts with them. If they want my business (and my business’ business) they’ll treat me well. So far, so good.
Just curious, I’ve seen the occasional article on Consumerist with near-30% interest rates but I’ve never come across those. How common are those? All of the cards I have are at 7.9%, which I find too steep to ever consider leaving a balance on. I can’t imagine paying even more than that.
OK, I’m honestly going to cancel my BoA accounts soon and move over to
SunTrust. It will be a PITA to move everything, but I can’t be with an
organization that treat people so awfully. Hopefully, I won’t have to make
the same move away from Sun Trust….
@William Mize: Think of it from the banks standpoint. The way that the market is going now and people aren’t paying their bills. This gentlemen is a huge liability for the bank. Yes, he may be paying his minimum payment on time but a 30k balance is high. The bank didn’t like his income and his debt to income ratio. They nipped it in the butt before they had to take a huge 30k loss because he filed bankruptcy. Why let the customer rake up more debt?
@Breach: You should have your personal bankers phone number so you can leave him/her a message directly.
Strange, I send letters to my banks, including BofA, every couple of years to get my rates lowered it has worked every time. I don’t really carry a balance on Credit Cards but I don’t want to be overcharged if I have the occasional large purchase I need a few months to pay off.
Letter is normally to the effect, “I have received an offer from xxx bank for a cc at xyz APR. My APR is currently higher on my card but I enjoy your customer service and value my long account history. Would you consider lowering my rate to something similar to this rate.” Has worked with BofA, MBNA (pre merger), and Chase.
As for BofA’s customer service the only real issues I have ever had with them are charge backs to vendors who tried to swindle me in one way or another. In every instance BofA has put the $ back in my account while I was on the phone with a rep. I receive notice that the issue has been permanently resolved a few weeks later.
BofA has said that their new policy is too get rid of “risky” customers by raising their interest rates and dumping them wherever they can.
That is their new corporate policy. These statements by BofA have been in BusinessWeek and on MSN Money online, and other financial sites. Where is Congress’ Creditcard Holders Bill of Rights???? We need it now!!
30k in consumer debt?
Yeah, BofA is at fault all right, for allowing you to run up a balance that high.
@meadandale, reading comprehension issues much? The OP didn’t say he had “consumer debt”. He said he had no problem paying off his balance. He called to ask what his interest rate was, not for help with his balance. There are plenty of other threads where you can blame the consumer without looking like a fool, why not post there?
@mythago:
Looks like you are the one with reading comprehension problem, to wit:
“I typically run $30k balances”
If he has a $30k balance on his credit cards, then that means he has 30k in consumer debt (revolving credit).
Here’s some info since you appear to be confused….
[en.wikipedia.org]
He also said, “otherwise always paid on time and extra.”. I read this as he is making minimum payments plus a LITTLE extra.
They probably concluded that he was high risk (high debt to income ratio) and didn’t want to keep his credit line open. I concur.
Frankly, I blame BofA for waiting until the OP called before determining that he was high risk.
Banks also get rated as investments depending on their average outstanding balances in different types of loans, their customers average credit ratings, etc…
Right now since everyone is freaking out over the Bearstearns/housing market thing, everyone is trying to make their books look better.
Moving a bunch of sub-prime credit customer with large balance from revolving credit to term credit would certainly help them look more investor friendly right now.
Bank of America: Higher Fees. Why does ANYONE bank with these scumbags? Oh yea, they’re stupid
They probably closed his account because he actually had identification and social…thus he wasn’t an illegal immigrant.
Seems like they vastly prefer those these days anyways.