@Anonymous wrote:
You folks are making me feel like I should think I am blessed being reduced to 1k from 2300. I find it amazing that they have no mathematical explanation for how they come up with this. If it is not for the fact I am trying to close a loan on a home, I could care less. Right now I can not afford to have my debt ratio or credit screwed with. We will all be better for this. Just remember when the economy turns around, these same companies will be vying for our business. Tell them we have made a decision to reduce our CC's and you were part of that group!
Well everyone I might have found a rhyme or reason for what they are doing and how they are calculating these new credit lines. I have a friend who worked for BofA and moved to HSBC branch as a manager and we are still in touch and I see his cousin at my branch still. So I figured I hit him up and see if he knows anything internal that might help us out. He told me that most of the lower ranks don't like what is being done as they are the ones pissed off customers go and yell at but they can't do much about it since it comes from high up and they have been planning this since December of 2008 and its not something new. The effects are just now being felt because they started with certain group and working their way down the list.
He told me to check the bottom right of my letter and tell him what code is there and I wasn't sure what he meant until I noticed a small print next to the "Equal Credit Opportunity Act Notice" and it said L13_Profitability. He said ok you are in group 13 and that's why you didn't feel the hit till now, 12 other groups got slashed before you. He told me that the wording of mitigation and review and crap like that is just that, fotter for the letter. The real deal is that they want to get rid of customers that are not making them any money. There was a time when good customers were gold but now bad customers are the ones making them money by carrying a balance, having excessive usage, paying finance charges, overlimits and late fees and able to charge them higher interest, so that's the ones they want. He agrees that its an asinine position to take but that's where they are going.
First apparently they cut or closed all the dormant accounts. Then apparently they cut the small card limits, then apparently they moved to those without AF and low interest rates, and so on. With those of us that have perfect pattern, low usage and high credit and there is nothing they can use to get rid of us, they lowered the limits to 20% above your highest ever usage. So if you ever carried a high balance even for a brief period, your CL wasn't slashed as much as if you never carried a high balance at all. So hence why some go from 3k to 1k but some go from 10k to 300. In my case since my highest balance was 1977 then they gave me 2080 of my 4500 limit and so on. Although using the 20% above logic, my new limit should have been 2375 instead of 2080 but oh well.
It seems that being a responsible card user is why we are getting hit and we are being graded on the curve of how much we have spent with them. Since we PIF and don't carry balances, and don't pay finance charges, we are not profitable to them so if they reduce the limit then we will be using a higher percentage of the CL and they feel there is more chance we will default in some way or carry a balance or pay them which is absurd because I will simply stop using my card, I am not going to play their game. Anyway, wanted to share for everyone to know.
@Anonymous wrote:
All these postings do nothing to bring to the attention of regulatory authorities the actions of HSBSC. in the time it takes you to write post here, which for all intents and purposes doesn't fix the problem, you should take the same time to open a complaint with the Comptoller Of The currency, the regulator of HSBC. The complaint can be filed online in a matter of minutes. I filed the day after learning that my limit was reduced with no prior notification, which was last month. I've yet to receive notification from HSBC as to the reason. You really need to direct your energy into a direction where this becomes a "public issue" thus the Comptoller complaint and calls and letters to the offices of Senator Chris Dodd, Bod Casey, Jr. and Representative Barney Frank. Anybody with media connections should also get them involved in this screwing that we're getting.
You can do both, post here and complain without having to pick one over the other. Your assumption that posting here automatically means people didn't complain to the authority is improper. Most are capable of multitasking.