Card Falsely Reported Lost or Stolen

[thrasher865]

I got a glimpse of what my FICO score could be a couple weeks ago.  My BofA card is the only card I have a serious balance on.  It has a $6000 limit, and the balance is $5800, so it is essentially maxed out.  It brings my overall utilization to ~19%, but that one card being maxed out is killing me.

Well, a couple weeks ago, it was falsely reported lost or stolen on my EQ report by BofA.  For one day, it showed a $6000 limit, but no balance, before the "new" account showed up.  My score was sitting at 714 for a while, and it SHOT UP to 776!  So if I pay off this one balance, I'm assuming that's the score I could be looking at.

Now, some good news.  When the report updated with the correct balance, my score settled back at 734, so it's still up a bit from it's historical plateau, but I'm sure the tiniest thing could send it back down to around 700.

The real point of this thread, though, is should I be worried about it being reported as lost or stolen on my credit report?  I never reported it lost or stolen, although in a big brother conspiracy theory coincidence, this did occur the day after I cut up the card.  Could this negatively affect anything?  Is there any reason I should ask BofA to not report this?

[rootpooty]

well it was never lost or stolen in the first place. if its reporting like that you should call card services and see whats going on. with you carrying a balance like that and bofa being notorious for closing accounts lately I would def make a move rather than catch a potential surprise

[llecs]

OP, same happened to DW with her BofA CC. In her case we received a renewal CC from them and never activated it. We shoved it in the drawer while we pay down debt. One day we got another in the mail and realized they reported the other as lost/stolen.

[OhioCPA]

I am on my third BOA card replacement in about six months. I learned about the most recent "stolen" card by an alert from ScoreWatch. I received the new card two weeks later. Apparently BOA issues new cards in response to reports of hacking of vendor's files and my card keeps ending up on the list that have been hacked.

[Anonymous]

I don't know what's up with BOA.  I have had the same problem with them over the years.  They have reported my card lost/stolen 3 times, but it doesn't seem to affect my credit score.

[thrasher865]

Hmmmm.  Interesting.

I haven't received a replacement card, and I don't believe my old card was scheduled to expire until 2013.

[Crashem]

I always thought lost/stolen card tradelines were ignored by FICO scoring, but recently was told here that they are taken into account.  Assuming that is true, you need to make sure of two things.  One, the lost/stolen tradeline is shown with 0 balance and closed and no additional negative remarks.  The duped trade line (for the new card) shows the correct original information including original open date.

[thrasher865]

All of this is the case.  The old tradeline was changed to 0 balance, as stated in the OP.  The new tradeline has original open date, and all other info is correct.

Now that I think of it, my First Tennessee Bank credit card did this same thing when I didn't call in to activate my new card after the old one expired.  I didn't think about it and probably threw it out, because I never use that card.  It's just for overdraft protection.