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BOA Credit Card, Unauthorized Check & Constantly Lower My Limit

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BOA Credit Card, Unauthorized Check & Constantly Lower My Limit

Hey Guys,

 

BOA are driving me crazy!  I opened a business bank account with them back in 2006 where they offered me a nice new credit card too with a $20k limit.  At the time I talked to the branch about an overdraft facility which they told me I had on this account, awesome!  So, after a few months it was about time to switch over banks, working with two accounts and transferring money, I was going to hit my overdraft on the BOA account, I really didn't see this as a huge problem, I might have been in the red for a few days max....

 

Turns out they didn't quite explain to me the overdraft process, any money in the red in my account would be taken off of my credit card....okay, not a big deal until I discovered when I wrote a check for $3750 to pay a supplier, they viewed that as a cash advance and upped my interest on that to 23.9%.  Realizing my mistake, I made sure I paid the $3750 off on my credit card......which they then informed me only paid my other balances, I had to pay everything off that was previously sitting on the card and only then they would start to pay down the cash advance.....

 

Fast forward to 2009, I was close to my $20k limit on my card, running a business and being overseas, Ill admit my payment schedule was erratic, occasionally on-time, occasionally not, not the way I should be running things especially with that 23.9% APR.  So, to help my credit score, I just started to pay everything I could on that card to bring the limit right down, within a few months I hit $10.5k balance, great I thought, no longer near my limit and half the balance will do wonders for my score....until they sent a letter the following month telling me my credit card limit had been reduced to $11k....groan.

 

Okay, more payment, paying it down, I eventually hit $6k.....again, another letter the following month telling me they lowered my limit to $7.2k......groan....my credit score was not getting any better with me paying this card down as the balance was always above/close to 90%.....

 

Back in May I lost my card, so a quick call to Bank of America to request a new card and over the phone I was told no problem, they would send me out a new one.  A few days later I get another call, BOA again, first confirming my details, then asking me all these additional questions, how much I make, how much my wife makes, how much my mortgage was, etc etc, at the end of the call there representative told me that they would send me out a new card.....this confused me, initially I was told it was no problem to get a new card, now it might have been a problem?

 

I then find out a few days ago, that my credit score dropped a large number of points because there was a hard check on there from BOA back in May.

 

While I realize I should have never had such a large balance on my card, I have made damn sure to pay it down as much as I can, its now sitting at $1k and will be a nice $0 next month.  My question is I feel like I have been treated pretty poorly by BOA and the hard check on my credit score just because I lost my card was the icing on the cake.

 

Can I get this hard check removed?  If they told me they would have done this, I would have never asked for another card....problem is when you loose your card they will send you another, its an automatic response and something I feel I should not need to have had happen on my personal score.

 

Thanks guys!

 

PS Sorry for the loooong explanation, sometimes its just good to get your frustration down in a forum! Smiley Wink

Message 1 of 3
2 REPLIES 2
thrasher865
Valued Contributor

Re: BOA Credit Card, Unauthorized Check & Constantly Lower My Limit

You have been treated pretty poorly.  Unfortunately, that's business as usual nowadays, and not just for BoA.

 

But you can't really fault them too much.  They wanted to make sure that they got their money back, as I'm sure even you would admit that you looked like a risky case at that time.  My best advice as far as the credit limit would be to maintain a 0 balance for 6 months or so and then call and request your initial limit back.  It worked for me, but my initial limit was much more modest than yours.  They did the same to me, but my balance never approached maxed out.  I had a $4k limit and I carried a balance of about 2.5k paying about $100 a month until I paid it off all at once one month.  One month later they slashed my limit to $500.  I just called back 3 weeks ago and asked for a CLI and they gave me my initial limit back.

 

I'm unsure of the dispute process.  If it was an unauthorized inquiry, it seems that you should be able to dispute it, but how you would prove that it was unauthorized, i dont know.  I think you should call BoA and dispute it through them to see if they will remove it.  A hard pull just to get a replacement card? Ludicrous.


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Current Score: EQ: 749 - TU: ---
Goal Score: EQ: 760 - TU: 760


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Message 2 of 3
chasmith
Valued Contributor

Re: BOA Credit Card, Unauthorized Check & Constantly Lower My Limit

For a request for a credit increase or a new account they have the right to take a hard pull.  Otherwise they are only entitled to a soft pull.  Several years ago I was successful writing the CRA stating the inquiry was account maintenance and the inquiry was removed.

 

I went through the sort of things youy did - lost card triggered a hard pull and re-evaluation of my account.  But (a big but) they wrote me a letter stating everything is fine and restating my credit limit - but cut it all the way to the current balance which caused 100% utilization and also moved my total utilization since the CL was 37k and they cut it to 5K.  Then cut my LOC to is current balance because my score had dropped.

 

This was the final straw in a debt treradmill I was on that led me to file Chapter 7 BK.  Be careful you don't get on that treadmill.

BK7 Filed 8/11/2009 Discharged 11/23/2009. Purchased new home 4/11/2012
Starting Score:11/16/2009 EQ 566 11/16/2009 TU 538
Interim Score: 12/27/2012 EQ 683 09/17/2012 EX (lender) 670 1/01/2013 TU 701
Current Score: 11/06/2013 EQ 708 11/06/2013 EX 702 11/16/2013 702 11/06/2013 TU 729
Goal Score: EQ 740 EX 740 TU 740
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