topic Re: Comenity Cards Closed in Credit Cards

Comenity Cards Closed

patoot10 — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 04:50:25 GMT

I recently got fed up with Comenity Bank for everything that everyone hates about them in this community (you know you do!)

So I called account protection number and closed all my accounts in one call that took 2 minutes.

I had 3 cards with them:

Express opened in March 2017 which had $2,500 limit

Victoria's Secret opened in March 2017 which had $2,500 limit

Williams Sonoma Visa opened in September 2017 which had $1,000 limit

I am glad I made that decision and won't be doing any business again with those tools or their other bank Comenity Capital Bank.

Granted they have a huge collection of cards across multiple industries and I loved my Express card so much I actually had the A-List status but I believe that banks are not entitled to our business unless they offer something substantial. Subprime banks like Comenity who offer cards that are basically a small step above payday loans (not that I ever paid a dollar in interest on a credit card) can only be useful for rebuilding or building a credit file and that's all they are good for.

Regards,

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

K-in-Boston — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 04:32:05 GMT

Why did you close the cards? How are they a small step above payday loans? CBNA offers many similar cards; I wouldn't consider CitiBank to be a subprime lender. I have a great BJ's card from them with a decent limit ($26,800) that gives me 5% (sometimes 10% during promotions) back in rewards at BJ's (plus additional rewards if I were to use it elsewhere like 2% for gas and restaurants) and constant 0% balance transfer offers (with fees as low as 1%). I'm not rebuilding and my credit file is certainly built. I don't understand the issue.

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

Loquat — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 04:59:49 GMT

@patoot10 wrote:
I recently got fed up with Comenity Bank and everything else that everyone hates about them in this community (you know you do!)

So I called account protection number and closed all my accounts in one call that took 2 minutes.

I had 3 cards with them:

Express opened in March 2017 which had $2,500 limit
Victoria's Secret opened in March 2017 which had $2,500 limit
Williams Sonoma Visa opened in September 2017 which had $1,000 limit

I am glad I made that decision and won't be doing any business again with those tools or their other bank Comenity Capital Bank.

Granted they have a huge collection of cards across multiple industries and I loved my Express card so much I actually had the A-List status but I believe that banks are not entitled to our business unless they offer something substantial. Subprime banks like Comenity who offer cards that are basically a small step above payday loans (not that I ever paid a dollar in interest on a credit card) can only be useful for rebuilding or building a credit file and that's all they are good for.

Regards,

I too don't understand the issue here. Subprime bank? Who isn't these days if you're defining subprime as in a lender who lends to those with less (and some times significantly less) than perfect credit? Amex - Delta Gold and even their charge card. Citi - Double Cash with a $500 limit AND they consider it a World Elite MasterCard. Chase - same thing, Amazon Visa Signature with a $500 limit. Bank of America is king of tossing those $1k limits out. NFCU - need I say more?

Okay, lets address the "random closures" to due inquiry that only Comenity catches the case for. Does Chase do similar things? - yep, they'll do it after approval. Poke them at the wrong time with the right card and watch them shut that bad boy down...and then proceed, like Comenity, to close all the existing ones you have to. Citi - approve you today and ask for verification later. Barclays - well they're unique...they'll approve you, mail you the card, and then upon activating ask you to identify some random person that they assume you know or are related to. After all, you should know exactly what color your cousins eyes are and how much she weighed when you lived in the same zip code 37 years ago. Hah! And even if you past that portion of their crazy test, you then have to tread lightly because they just may get a little bothered if you start eating from a different menu (i.e. spending money with Chase, Citi, BoA, or any other lender besides them).

So, again, I ask...what's the issue? How does Comenity suck any more than the other players?

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

patoot10 — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 05:33:16 GMT

That part about cousins eyes cracked me up lol.

Comenity Bank has terrible customer service. Each agent handles the number on the back of at least 20 different cards. Making them less than competent in knowing what kind of benefits this card offers and when to expect what benefits to actually reflect on your account. There's one that I spoke to, she was friendly and told me that she handles calls for many cards like (Victoria's secret, express, jcrew, ann taylor, etc).

Comenity Bank has a 99% automated underwriting because what kind of a competent bank wants to manually deal with thousands of daily applications online and in-store across tons of cards, they don't have time for that, they just want to charge that 28% APR which might be OK for some but if you get denied for something not related to your major credit report that they already dinged and they advice you to re-apply after 30 days so they probably ding you again while still not having their back-end issue fixed then that's not cool.

Comenity bank freezes your account for no reason and you call them just so they can SP your report and ask you those verifying questions (who does that ?!)

Comenity bank closed my card for fraud prevention and issued a new one with a different number to protect me which sounds good. Except they did that before I even received the card in the mail after getting approved which led to receiving two cards with two different numbers and good luck figuring out what the heck is going on with that.

Not to mention sketchy shutdowns by comenity for no reason and btw Barclays bank is no better. No wonder a bank like Barclays is surviving on co-branded cards because they are so bad they only have 2 cards that are legacy the ring and arrival and both are failures

Banks like BofA, Chase, Citi, Amex. They might mistreat someone here and there but in general they are major good banks that any consumer prefers to be on their good side. Have you seen someone in this forum wondering sadly why comenity hates them (unless they are trying hard to get that SCT to work) ?!

Synchrony bank is just as bad as comenity except they are less annoying and offer huge limits making it easy to adjust your spending and utilization if you have debt so at least they are useful in that regard.

Thank you all for this engaging convo

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 05:45:16 GMT

How did you get the orange version of the Amazon chase card?

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

patoot10 — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 05:54:16 GMT

Really dude ?

We are trashing Comenity in this thread and that's all you care about.

JK JK. It's part of the application

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 05:59:06 GMT

Dang I never had a choice when I applied, but I’ve had mine since they had the old plastic ones.

Thanks for the info.

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

patoot10 — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 06:02:41 GMT

Call Chase.

I am sure they will expedite a new one for you before X-mas.

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 03:00:15 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
How did you get the orange version of the Amazon chase card?

Asking the important questions.

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

patoot10 — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 04:01:56 GMT

WORD

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

CreditInspired — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 13:16:56 GMT

Wow OP, not only is your statement harsh, but it’s untrue that they’re one step above payday loans. I can think of several that fit that scenario but not Comenity.

You didn’t even say what you’re upset about. So to make a blanket statement like this doesn’t help newbies who come here looking for advice.

Like any card, there is always some upset or misunderstanding. Like in March, I got mad at Chase because I was declined for a CC because of 5/24. I closed my ChaseFU but I didn’t bash them. It was their rule and I had missed it.

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

CreditInspired — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 13:23:07 GMT

@Loquat

I don’t think your response could have been anymore humorous or made me laugh any harder 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣. I loved reading your response with my morning cup of Joe. I actually went back and re-read it so I could laugh all over again. 😂🤣😂🤣 Thank you.

Gawd, I love this forum.

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

patoot10 — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 14:32:47 GMT

I added a detailed response in the comments.

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

K-in-Boston — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 22:38:15 GMT

@patoot10 wrote:
^^
I added a detailed response in the comments.

Again, your detailed response does not apply to an extreme majority of Comenity's customers and like others, I'm not sure why you feel the need to bash them. I'll play along since potential cardholders shouldn't be scared away, especially as they are friendly to those with less-than-perfect credit.

@patoot10 wrote:
Comenity Bank has terrible customer service. Each agent handles the number on the back of at least 20 different cards. Making them less than competent in knowing what kind of benefits this card offers and when to expect what benefits to actually reflect on your account. There's one that I spoke to, she was friendly and told me that she handles calls for many cards like (Victoria's secret, express, jcrew, ann taylor, etc).

Okay, so friendly CSRs that offer terrible customer service by being overextended on the size of the portfolio they handle. Their store cards and bankcards all have application pages which clearly list the perks, in my BJ's account page there's a tab which reads Benefits that quite clearly shows all of the benefits and perks of the card, and you can always request a copy of your cardmember agreement if you still have questions. I don't expect every card issuer to provide the level of service I receive with American Express Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve and would hardly consider that reason enough to close every other account I have.

@patoot10 wrote:
Comenity Bank has a 99% automated underwriting because what kind of a competent bank wants to manually deal with thousands of daily applications online and in-store across tons of cards, they don't have time for that, they just want to charge that 28% APR which might be OK for some but if you get denied for something not related to your major credit report that they already dinged and they advice you to re-apply after 30 days so they probably ding you again while still not having their back-end issue fixed then that's not cool.

Most lenders have almost fully-automated underwriting. Could you imagine the armies of underwriters that Chase, Bank of America, American Express, Citi, etc. would need in order to manually review every application?! Not all of Comenity's cards have high APRs that high; they offer a number of cards with APR tiers depending upon creditworthiness. It's not a good idea to carry non-promotional balances on store cards as a rule anyway as the interest would easily offset any rewards/discounts you receive for using them. Reading between the lines, it sounds as though they may have declined you for a card for reasons that you felt were unfair? Again, this can happen with nearly any lender.

@patoot10 wrote:
Comenity bank freezes your account for no reason and you call them just so they can SP your report and ask you those verifying questions (who does that ?!)

I have not heard any reports of an account being frozen for no reason, nor has this been my experience with Comenity. If your accounts were frozen and they asked you verification questions, it sounds like there may have been some fraud concerns.

@patoot10 wrote:
Comenity bank closed my card for fraud prevention and issued a new one with a different number to protect me which sounds good. Except they did that before I even received the card in the mail after getting approved which led to receiving two cards with two different numbers and good luck figuring out what the heck is going on with that.

Okay, so there was a fraud concern. This problem has two simple solutions. Call the number on the back of the card and tell them you were issued a new card and are not sure which one is the active account, or log into your account and view the card number:

@patoot10 wrote:
Not to mention sketchy shutdowns by comenity for no reason and btw Barclays bank is no better. No wonder a bank like Barclays is surviving on co-branded cards because they are so bad they only have 2 cards that are legacy the ring and arrival and both are failures

No reason is in the eye of the beholder. While it's unfortunate that it does happen, every case that I've seen on myFICO has been due to the consumer opening a very large number of accounts in a short period of time, and often numerous cards with Comenity themselves. I assure you that if you tried to open 15 accounts with CitiBank/CBNA in a short window, you'd find yourself in the same situation. Some lenders actually have firm policies that you can only apply for X cards in a period of Y months. Due to somewhat relaxed underwriting standards and the sheer number of cards that they service, it's easy for people to go on app sprees and get a ton of their cards.

Barclay can indeed be finicky. DW herself saw this with 800ish credit scores after doing a balance transfer on her Ring card. She made multi-thousand dollar payments with like $50 minimum payments due, and had a CLD due to "payments on this account have been too low." Barclay is hardly surviving on cobranded cards; last year they held 1.43 trillion dollars in assets, not far behind Citigroup.

I'm sorry that you seem to have had a bad experience, but I still haven't seen any reason for you to have closed all of your cards and written this thread with such absolutes. </rant>

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 22:47:45 GMT

@CreditInspired wrote:
@Loquat

I don’t think your response could have been anymore humorous or made me laugh any harder 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣. I loved reading your response with my morning cup of Joe. I actually went back and re-read it so I could laugh all over again. 😂🤣😂🤣 Thank you.

Gawd, I love this forum.

Time for a party ... where's the beer and brats (or pretzels if you prefer)

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

patoot10 — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 23:24:04 GMT

K-in-Boston,

You are advocating hard for Comenity here. I am simply cutting my relationship with a subprime lender mentioning that it's only good for people with poor credit to help them get in the game but moving forward you are better off with prime lenders who you can pick up the phone and speak to someone with some authority or proper training rather than a young confused American customer service rep servicing 20 different portfolios. I am just listing my experience here so that people with poor credit that are trying hard to get in with Comenity have an idea on what to expect with such a bank.

P.S: did you know that my comenity online account never showed pending transactions? you only see your available credit going down until the transaction posts and then you see the details. Also the way you defended Comenity point by point for my long response made it seem like a hassle to be on top of your Comenity accounts rather than just calling a front line Discover card customer service who can answer 99% of your questions smoothly.

Thanks again for this engaging conversation and good news I just checked my credit report and all accounts show closed now and my score didn't change which was expected.

Regards,

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

Remedios — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 23:34:08 GMT

@patoot10 wrote:
K-in-Boston,

You are advocating hard for Comenity here. I am simply cutting my relationship with a subprime lender mentioning that it's only good for people with poor credit to help them get in the game but moving forward you are better off with prime lenders who you can pick up the phone and speak to someone with some authority or proper training rather than a young confused American customer service rep servicing 20 different portfolios. I am just listing my experience here so that people with poor credit that are trying hard to get in with Comenity have an idea on what to expect with such a bank.

P.S: did you know that my comenity online account never showed pending transactions? you only see your available credit going down until the transaction posts and then you see the details. Also the way you defended Comenity point by point for my long response made it seem like a hassle to be on top of your Comenity accounts rather than just calling a front line Discover card customer service who can answer 99% of your questions smoothly.

Thanks again for this engaging conversation and good news I just checked my credit report and all accounts show closed now and my score didn't change which was expected.

Regards,

So, why open cards with Comenity in a first place?

A savvy consumer like you surely did their research prior to applying

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

patoot10 — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 23:39:18 GMT

Wasn't savvy at the time and I legit used their cards because I shopped at these stores

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

TXinandout — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 23:57:51 GMT

OP glad you got rid of the trash, good for you!

Did the same thing about a year ago.

Re: Comenity Cards Closed

K-in-Boston — Mon, 24 Dec 2018 00:13:25 GMT

@patoot10 wrote:
K-in-Boston,

You are advocating hard for Comenity here. I am simply cutting my relationship with a subprime lender mentioning that it's only good for people with poor credit to help them get in the game but moving forward you are better off with prime lenders who you can pick up the phone and speak to someone with some authority or proper training rather than a young confused American customer service rep servicing 20 different portfolios. I am just listing my experience here so that people with poor credit that are trying hard to get in with Comenity have an idea on what to expect with such a bank.

I'm simply stating that Comenity is no better and no worse than other lenders who service similar accounts. It's imperative that persons finding their way to these forums be able to read information that is factual to the best of the ability of the myFICO community. Blanket statements like these are not only incorrect for the vast majority of consumers, but could unreasonably deter readers from considering an account with Comenity. While they do service customers who may themselves be classified as subprime, they're hardly in the same league as lenders like Continental Finance and Credit One who make their money on fee harvester cards. Myself and many others have store cards issued by Comenity and Synchrony, and would hardly consider ourselves subprime borrowers or have a reason to move on. If I am getting 5-10% off of a purchase simply for having and using a card, I would be doing myself a disservice by using a card from a "prime lender" that rewards me less.

@patoot10 wrote:
P.S: did you know that my comenity online account never showed pending transactions? you only see your available credit going down until the transaction posts and then you see the details. Also the way you defended Comenity point by point for my long response made it seem like a hassle to be on top of your Comenity accounts rather than just calling a front line Discover card customer service who can answer 99% of your questions smoothly.

Pending transactions show on my account; that's likely a matter of how card processing is handled by the merchants. It's never been a hassle to manage my Comenity accounts. I log in after the statement's cut, schedule a payment, and have no other interactions with them until the following month. That has nothing to do with my response.

This is becoming a circular conversation. Everyone is welcome to share positive and negative experiences with any lender. Some of us will share those those experiences, but this is certainly a case where your reasoning for bashing Comenity in blanket statements like "everyone hates about them in this community (you know you do!)" and "only good for people with poor credit to help them get in the game" is simply unfounded.