Bank of America Credit Card Madness...

I opened a letter from BoA this morning regarding a Line of Credit account that I have never used. In fact, I think I never even asked to have it. The letter said the following:

"This letter is to inform you of a change to the above-referenced account. We periodically review customers' accounts to determine the appropriate credit line. As a part of this process, we evaluate the overall history of this account and your credit report. As a result of this review, your credit line has been reassigned to $500 because you have a history of delinquency with other creditors."

So...I have a history of delinquency with other creditors?

My Credit Score is 811.

Aside from cancelling the account which I've never used, I'm not sure what to do about this. I worried that something has happened to my credit that I don't know about and I don't want to have to pay to check that out. I have already received my free credit report for this year.

Any ideas?

credit reporting companies. If you haven't already gotten all of them, maybe you could get one of the others.

for i think 30 days after a dispute. i am not certain, but my husband has been going through this. there may be some inaccuracies (as there usually are) on your credit report.

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

"Free Credit Report Dot Com" is a marketing scam. The link above takes you to the government-recommended free report site.

That other site is so misleading. x(

I went to the one that you recommended when I got mine.

I'd been meaning to check my credit report, but wasn't really sure how to go about it (I figured that FreeCreditReport.com was not a good way to go). I followed your link, and it was a very simple process. Thanks for saving me the research.

If you don't have a bad history and they think you do, there is an error somewhere--best to track it down ASAP.

Get your free credit report

But, I'd call them

If you have a friend who's a lawyer have that person call

to disclose which one. The letter should say. You have 30 days (I think) to request your repot for free from them afterwards.

...fees on their customers since before work on the credit card reform bill started last year.

If you've had a late payment in the last seven years it may not have affected your rating much at all (especially if it was less than 30 days late), but it will still be on your record.

The bank can seize upon this as a bs reason to lower your credit limit. (This is a real screw job because that also has the effect of lowering your credit rating.)

I'm in the process of getting rid of my Bank of America Visa and pulling my checking account with them.

whether you've checked your credit lately or not. Any time you are turned down for credit, etc., you have the right to check the source. There are three credit reporting agencies and sometimes one will have information that (right OR wrong) is not on the other reports so order all three so you can find out where the problem lies. Sometimes clerical errors are made and sometimes you have to go to the creditor who claims a delinquency. Get on this right away. Someone could have opened an account in your name that you don't even know about. Good luck.

Write back and tell them that whatever reason they used for altering your credit line, it was not your credit history, and you expect them to issue a written retraction to you, or you will file a complaint with your State's Attorney General's consumer fraud division.

Tell them you understand that they are in financial trouble for making bad loans and bad investment decisions, but they cannot blame you for that. Tell them if they wish to change your credit line because they're in deep financial trouble, just say that, and don't try to fabricate a non existent reason.

Advise them if they don't retract it, you'll write every member of the House Banking Committee to complain about their actions. And mention that there's always the possibility of a class action suit, since you're hearing they're doing this with many creditworthy customers.

I don't know what they'll do, but a certified letter with threats to go to the AG and congress will at least make them deal with you. They'll have to get a real person to figure out how to handle your letter and threats.

my score. They set a perfect score at 990. My score with them is 930. They say I am an "A" and have a better score than more than 90% of the population. They also gave me a free credit report and there is absolutely nothing there that would cause BoA to do this.

I am going to call and raise hell on Monday.

You may wish to call, but then follow it up by a confirmation letter or any letter setting forth what you said to them previously. Never trust a bank ~~ particularly BofA. You would be amazed at the correspondece logs they keep ~~ and how phone calls are NOT documented or twisted to fit their particular POV.

Oh, yeah, and do sent the letter CERTIFIED MAIL.

Credit card companies/banks are the enemy ~~ assume that whatever they are doing in NOT in your best interest and document and protect yourself at every turn.

JMHO

Document, document, document.

It is.

The only score that matters is a FICO score that is what banks use.

So pulling your credit from Transunion, Experian, or Equifax is fine but the scores are worthless.

So raise hell just don't mention the "score".

$7 for report + score = almost guaranteed that it is a fake score (a "fako").

FICO score range maxes out at 850 so that is another giveaway also.

They are sneaky aren't they?

Fair Issac (the firm that came up with the FICO forumla) sued the big three credit reporting agencies a couple years ago for selling a credit score that was not FICO but suggesting that it was equivalent to FICO.

Any time anyone officially gives you credit, takes away credit, or changes the terms of your credit, you are entitled to one free credit report from each of the agencies.

I've been getting weird letters from them to say they're changing their terms and sending new cards for everything--and my credit line has gone ridiculously high on each one. As sucky as our credit was all my married life, I really didn't expect to become such a desirable customer as a single woman. . .

Definitely sounds like they have a screw loose in your case. I wonder if the real "problem" is that you've never used this credit account and they're somehow losing money on you (though one of my newly augmented credit cards is one I never use, which kind of screws that theory). As crazy as they are to salvage customer goodwill, I suspect if you raise hell, they will apologize in a big way.

I set up a VISA card for my daughter there, and requested it be an automatic deduct from her
bank account, as she was studying in L.A. at the time, and the account was being managed from my
branch in Dallas. Suddenly, about 4 months later, she started getting threatening letters for not
paying her bill, despite the automatic deduct. They were demanding late fee penalties, etc. She was
in tears because she got no one who could help her, and they blocked her card.

I got on the phone from Germany, asked for a supervisor ( she was in Arizona or some foreign country).
I explained the situation about three times before she got it. She said she would make it an automatic
deduct starting right then and there, and she/we (I was putting the money in her account) would only
have to pay the late charges that had built up. I said that I didn't think it fair, as we had requested
the automatic deduct from the very beginning. The supervisor said that the late charges would have to
be paid. I told her that the matter would be resolved in one hour. I gave her my social security number,
asked her to look at the accounts over which I have control, and then told her that she could either
wipe out the late charges, and we would keep our accounts with Bank of A, or she could deduct her late
charges with my blessings, and ALL of our accounts would depart Bank of A permanently within one hour.
Her choice, and I was fine with either one (no I wasn't really, because I didn't want to spend another
hour on the phone setting it all up, but no reason to tell her that unless I had to).

These conversations are recorded, and she knew the blame for losing those accounts would fall on her
shoulders, and all that for a $118 late fee. The late fee vanished in a puff of smoke.

Amex tried a similar thing with me last year. I said are you sure you want to do this? The guy said
he was sticking to his guns. Now Amex gets a half million bucks less charged on that account than
they used to, and I set up a euro-denominated card here so Amex doesn't get their 3% foreign transaction
fee either. They got their $86 late fee. Real smart calculation on their part. Who needs organized crime?
Open a credit card company!

... of course, that "screwup" was going to benefit them, a $40 charge for "late fees", which was ridiculous because I pay off my account about twice a month to zero balance.

I gave them a call, told them that this was clearly wrong and they fixed it instrantly. I just hope that this did not show up on my credit report.

How come all these "errors" NEVER favor the customer??? I am smelling a rodent...

This happened to me and I believe it is because so many people are joining those companies that help you negotiate settlements on your credit cards. Any credit card that goes into those programs must have a credit line of at least $1000.

I had another credit card company do this to me. I believe they are trying to prevent people from doing these settlements, so if they change your credit limit to $500. that takes care of that problem for them. They probably sent out tons of form letters for anyone over $1000 trying to prevent this problem.

line of credit. They said it was because I never use the card so they don't think I need such a high limit. I have an excellent credit score and I was perplexed, but now they have lowered me to $7500, cuz the most I have ever charged was $5000 for airline tickets for my daugters' family from Japan about 5 years ago which I paid off in 30 days.

They are lowering it because they don't think I will require that much money.

I probably never will put that much on there again, because they don't live in Japan anymore, but it peeves me that BOA can just do what they want.

I constantly have to go into their bank for fees that they charge my to accounts.
When my husband was alive we had ALOT MORE money in Bank of America, so we were considered
Premium customers. Since his Money Market went to his 3 children, it wiped out a large amount of the money in that bank (and of course, that was all pre-arranged when we got married 16 years ago. As my money is going to my 3 children when I die. So now if I go below $100 or so, in one account, they charge you and I mostly use another bank now because they pay more in interest for a money market,but I don't want to completely leave BOA since I have several accounts there with my husband's name remaining on the account.

(That is something I read in a book about grief...to leave your spouse's name on one account so you can cash any unexpected checks that are made to you and him jointly. I'm friends with people at my bank but there is such a large turnover that I will never close the one account. (The stimulus check in 2008 was an example)

Hope this helps....but definitely call the bank to make sure someone isn't messing with ya.

I tried to get a free credit report last week and theysay I have already received mine from all 3 and they are wrong. I have not ever requested one since my husband passed away in July of 2007.

And I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for it...(well, maybe I will)I dont know.
good luck.

You also need to go ahead and pay to get your credit report...there may be an identity theft thing going on.

Do you have a BoA card at all? If not, maybe someone got one in your name.

I found out today that, starting in March and each month since, I have had four $20.00 "automatic payments" from my checking account paid to something called "Smart Step Insurance."

I got a BoA person on the phone and asked what it was. She said she did not know, but gave me a telephone number to call, which got me the following: "Thank you for calling Intersections Insurance Company. Our offices are closed for the weekend, please call back during our regular busines hours bla bla etc."

I googled 'em and instantly found complaints from people about "Smart Step" aka "Intersections Insurance" withdrawing money from BANK OF AMERICA accounts without authorization.

I called BoA again, and was told, YES, "Smart Step" is an associate of BoA (or words to that effect) in marketing some kind of insurance plan to BoA account holders. Therefore, I MUST have agreed to the withdrawals by "Smart Step." I explained that I have NEVER, EVER heard of "Smart Step" and in no way did I agree to this.

In any case, I ordered that the payments cease, and filed a claim to get my eighty bucks back. This Monday I will call the crooks at "Smart Step" to deliver my message of disgust and zero tolerance for their fraudulent activities, in collusion with BoA.

I also plan on removing all of my money from BoA, and fully explaining to them why.

So, BEWARE THE SCAM known as BANK OF AMERICA. Relatively small unauthorized "automatic payments" may escape your attention, especially if you have any otherwise legitimate such transactions going on. Imagine how much $$ that has the potential adding up to! It's multi-million dollar fraud, at the minimum.

ON EDIT: I realized long ago BoA was a complete and utter piece of shit, but due to general laziness, and not knowing what other bank was much better anyway, I let it go...