couple points.
First off, contact penfed and ask them to report the account for the full length of the old account. They should nto have ahd to issue fully new accounts, just new cards and access numbers (pins, etc). If they did have to give new accounts, they should be able to report the full history length of the account. You should not be penalized by that at all if it was not your choice to open a new account. (this is not the case in situations like takeovers of banks etc though when they sometimes consolidate accounts) I do not know that they will do it, but you should be able to call and ask. In some cases they can do that.
Second, I would not worry about 12 points. First, that is not a major hit (unless you are in the mortgage process and it is going to kill the deal). New account point drops usually recover pretty quick (3-6 months or so but sometimes it takes a year) In the end you will have a positive tradeline showing paid in full and then a new account to show a postive tradeline on so it will appear as having 2 positive tradelines as long as they do not denote the old account closed by grantor which usually infers bad things. Follow up on that.
The refi will probably drop your score 10-20 points, but again it will recover in short order. I know the tendancy to worry about every FICO point is hard to resist, but unless it is going to have an immediate affect on something you are trying to do, you are almost always better worrying about the best financial thing to do for yourself which usually leads to better FICO scores in the long run, than worrying about a few points that will recover quick enough. You may take a 30 point total drop for the 2 new accounts, but long term, your compomised card has been replaced with a new secure one, and I am assuming you refinanced to a better rate/payment/or quicker payoff. You will see the rewards of this soon enough (of course, still contact PENFED and see if they can fix the new account issue, but I would not get too worked up over it if they can not.)
