Gardner White handled by Comenity Bank Using 2 Month Old FICO Score to Freeze Card

[Anonymous]

Hi Again All,

I've never had this happen and I will be brief....

I have had a Gardner White credit card for over 20 years, they are a local Furniture store in Michigan.  I have spent in excess of $20K over the past 20 years and have never missed, been late, and always pay off large balances in full.  Credit limit, $6000

I went to use the card this past Tuesday for some purchases and was told by a GW sales rep the card had been put on hold and that I would have to call Comenity Bank whom they now use for their credit.  So I did.  I was told it was frozen for non use which was almost 3 years ago to the date.  I was told they would have to run a new credit check on me to open back the credit line.  I agreed.  I was INSTANTLY told without wait once I agreed I would be getting a letter in the mail in 7-10 days explaining why the hold could not be lifted.

I went right onto GW's website and complained in my accounts secure message area.  Within 2 hours I received a PDF from them.  The PDF was a FICO score dated August 2, 2016 showing my FICO score with Equifax was only 595 at the time.  I have since sold our home that had an 80K HELOC loan debt attached to it and paid off an extra $20K in credit cards and removed a $1200 ATT collection.

My FICO score has recently gone up to 692 as we just closed conventional on our new home this past Friday (not showing on CR's yet).

My question is... HOW were they able to procure an over 2 month old FICO score from Equifax when I did not give them permission on August 2nd to run my credit especially since we were at the time repairing my FICO scores to get it up above 680?  Where the heck did they get that info and why didn't they just run a NEW report that would have showed my improved score?  I have asked them repeatedly to explain how they came in possession of an old credit report and they simply reply over and over again with the same PDF as the reason for the declination of unfreezing my account.

Any ideas?  Is this common?  I have never had a CC or department store Card frozen like this.

Thanks very much in advance.

[austinguy907]

Non-use is a common reason to "freeze" aka close an account.

They must still be reporting the credit line to the CRA's for some reason like some other lenders which would give them SP access to your reports as if they were an active lender still.  Then again they may have done an internal freeze instead of showing closed on your reports.

When dealing with Sync/Comenity they're a bit sub par when it comes to using up to date info to make decisions.

Count it as a loss and pick up something better now that you have closed on your new home!!!!  It's time to collect a couple of new cards that support where you are now vs where you started 20 years ago.  Typically a new mortgage doesn't report for 3-9 months while they finish up the back end paper work and send it to market to be sold to someone else and then that someone else gets their paperwork together before reporting.  Chances are if you wait a couple of weeks your previous mortgage / HELOC will report as paid in full and result in even more of a score boost supporting cards that like someone over 700-720... could be more.

[805orbust]

+1.  Comenity and for that matter all the CC issuers periodically soft pull you. That's where they got it. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies.  I figured that was what they did but why do they go through the song and dance of asking when I called if I would give them permission to pull my credit that day.  So silly.  I get them my permission for a hard pull which would have showed a much better FICO score.  It's really no worries, I spent my money at Art Van instead.  Their loss.  Again, thanks for the replies.