Read this with humorous background music playing in your mind, as it is a comedy. If any item in here is not clear, I apologize and mean no disrespect and will immediately revise the wording upon notification.
I have been a Citibank customer for nearly 20 years and I HAD 20 cards with them with various lines of credit and balances on them. I felt like I carried no more than a 30% ratio of debt to available credit. I never had a late payment and paid in full each month, with over $100,000 in purchases each year.
So why did they close almost all of these 20 accounts with no warning and no phone call???
Well, because I decided I wanted the perks of a few other cards from Bank of America, Bank of Hawaii and Citibank, and in a 3 month period I got all of the cards I asked for and got the perks and then did not use the cards that much. So where's the problem, you ask? Well, I guess SOME banks use the "Number of Inquires" on your credit report to decide that you are in trouble and seeking more credit to bail yourself out, and they just whack your open accounts instead of checking to see that you don't use all your credit and have, for the most part, a spotless long-term record.
I called them and they looked into the account and basically gave the sensation that it really should not have been done the way it was, and I told them that they are upsetting me. Banks want my business, but they are treating me like I am a criminal who has been found out. Is closing the cards before I get the chance to use the available credit (there for like years) the right message to send?
They have not called me back yet to tell me if they will reopen the accounts.
The irony is that 3 or 4 of the inquiries in the last year were from CITIBANK. Sometimes in back to back months. All they had to do was call me and say your credit available is too high, and I would have told them which cards to reduce or eliminate (some from 2006 were not used in a long time), and all would have been OK. But to not call is highly irritating.
I hope to get resolution to this, as I think Citi has done well by me in the past, but I think their (probably in the last 1. X year) policy of closing accounts automatically when the inquiry number comes back from the agency is just wrong. Each case should be taken on its merits, and they should not lump a good customer in with the other idiots that can't manage their affairs/credit.
P.S. The last time they closed one of my accounts and it was wrong, they reopened it and gave me 7500 AA miles to shut me up. Since they closed 20 this time, they are in for a shock as to how much it will take to shut me up. Not to mention the annual fees I expect to be prorated back to me since I didn't have the benefit of the card for the full period.
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