Comments on: Smart Money Needs Your Help!

By: mary

mary — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:49:42 +0000

is the creditor required by law to notify you when they close an account? i just reviewed my credit report and two creditors closed my account and i was never notified. I had no idea they weren’t open anymore. one of them i used in october. No issues (payments late etc… in my history with them). does anyone know?

By: Velvet G.

Velvet G. — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:42:04 +0000

I received a letter from HSBC cancelling my credit card due to inactivity. I didn’t received any warning. This is so bad. Definitely I will send them a letter like Dylan Taylor did.

By: screwed by HSBC

screwed by HSBC — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:58:21 +0000

HSBC just hit me too. I have a fine credit history and they just closed me with the “due to inactivity” form letter.

Now my credit rating will take a hit from the loss of credit and that it was closed by the bank.

This ia rotten thing to do to customers and I hope they’re held accountable for their poor behavior.

By: Dylan Taylor

Dylan Taylor — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:22:00 +0000

This is a letter I just sent to HSBC: “I am VERY angry that you would just send me a computerized letter saying that you have suddenly just closed my credit card account due to inactivity! I have always been a very good customer with a very good credit rating. I have NEVER missed a single payment at any time with you. I have NEVER been late with a single payment to you. I usually doubled my the minimum payment due each time I made a payment to your company. The reason for the my recent inactivity is that I had simply consolidated my monthly credit card bills to a lower interest rate credit card and paid off my entire balance with you. I thought this is supposed to be a GOOD thing as far as a person’s credit is concerned! I had hoped to keep your card for emergencies and for any future needs. By closing my account in such a way, you have negatively affected my credit rating and me punished me for being a responsible customer. HOW DARE YOU! I will NOT sit by and allow this to happen. I am VERY protective of my credit rating and will NOT allow you to negatively affect it after I have given you my business and was a decent and loyal customer. Your customer service supervisor sounded like a computer and was completely unwilling and supposedly unable to help me. After doing some initial research, I see a large number of complaints by other people online pertaining to this same issue. I intend to inform EVERY news agency, My congress person and any other agency or person I can think of to see that this NEVER happens to another person ever again. I intend to create a
substantial web presence to address this issue and to create a forum in order to start a petition to be sent to ALL of the above. I am not only very insulted by your actions, but YOU should be VERY concerned as a business that you now have a very large amount of angry and insulted former customers. Your supposed computerized policies will most definitely lead to a loss of business from many people with excellent credit ratings. I personally will NEVER use ANY HSBC service EVER again. I will also see to it that EVERYONE is made aware of this ridiculous policy and that your already unstable company loses every single remaining customer! It is time that companies like yours stop leaving every action to a computer and put real human beings back into the machine! At the very least you should have sent out a warning letter that a person’s account was in jeapordy of being closed if not used within a reasonable amount of time. Youhave not heard the end of this. I promise you!”

By: TC

TC — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:30:30 +0000

I just received a letter from HBSC this week saying my account is closed due to inactivity. I carried a moderate balance on it for at least a couple of years and used it as recently as January.
I’ve contacted them in the past, before a period where I would be using my credit cards to see if they would at least match the rate of my lowest card, they declined to be competitive.
Since Washington Mutual was offering a lower APR and a good transfer rate, I paid off the HSBC card 6 months ago. Every other card I have has offered me an increase in my limit when they’ve been paid off – I heard nothing from HSBC until I was notified my account was closed.
I’m certainly not impressed by the way they do business – maybe they’re in trouble?

By: CJ

CJ — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:32:37 +0000

This month I received a letter saying that my HSBC card (GM Card) was being closed due to inactivity. I just called them to tell them that they didn’t even try to call me to even ask me if still wanted to keep the card. 5 mintures into the conversation they told me that they would reactivate my card. Well at that point I told them that I didn’t want the card because I rarely used it. Anyhow, I also found out that my Best Buy (I think from HSBC too) Cancelled my card due to inactivity…thats a bummer! I dont shop that much at best buy but when I do….I do purchase bid ticket items which I was planning to do this month. Cslled them up and was hoping that they would suggest reactivating it but they didnt….they even told me that they didnt have my information on their system…. I would have to go to the store and reapply…… This is really annoying!

By: Pamela

Pamela — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:58:27 +0000

I also had a Capital One card closed this week. I probably haven’t used it in nearly 2 years. It is my oldest credit account, so it will likely affect my score, but I’m not going to be shopping for a house or anything for at least another year, so I’m not terribly worried about it. It is weird though, because not even 6 months ago they sent me a new card.

By: MetaMommy

MetaMommy — Sun, 25 May 2008 23:15:32 +0000

Never. I have one card from Providian (now Washington Mutual) that I haven't used in at least 5 years, but I keep it because they provide me with a current credit score from TransUnion. So I can check my score as often as I want at no charge. I hope the account doesn't get closed!!

By: John

John — Wed, 07 May 2008 03:27:28 +0000

I had an HSBC card closed after about 6 months of inactivity – after I paid off a credit transfer balance.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:11:20 +0000

Amy, yes it was odd, since 6 months is pretty short and I would assume 1 year would trigger. Do not know exactly why the account was closed without warning, it could have been that the card was the replacement card for the one BofA closed due to fraudulent charges, so BofA may have thought that since it was a brand new card and never been used, that they would close it. it could have been retribution since we were threatening to close all of our accounts over several things BofA did (i.e. not answering our emails concerning our accounts, not giving us promo cash although we completely fulfilled the requirements, etc). I can’t prove retribution, but it seemed odd to us that after our barrage of complaints the card was closed, despite the complaints not revolving around the credit card. So, my guess is that since they issued a new card number, and it hadn’t been used since it was issued, then they considered it an inactive account and closed it. bottom line is that they closed the account, without warning after 6 months of inactivity.