topic Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason in Credit Cards

Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:08:15 GMT

I have had the Barclaycard Arrival credit card for the past 4 years. I'm part of a family business and have been using this card to charge purchases I make with vendors. Typically, I charge about $75,000 per month on the card. I always pay the card in advance and often times pay the card ahead of when payments are due to keep my credit limit freed up. Last week I went to login and it said "Account Closed." I called customer service and they told me they would be sending me a letter. The representative read me the letter over the phone and it basically said "A negative public record information identified. a consumer credit reporting agency was not used in making this determination." I do not have any bad debt, never filed bankruptcy, never made a late payment, have never been sued and have an 800+ credit score. I checked with each bureau and there was nothing I could glean from my credit reports. I even searched public court records in my home state to see if perhaps Barclays had me confused with someone else. There were no criminal or civil cases with my name listed. It makes no sense to me what happened. I spoke to 2 supervisors who both told me I needed to write a letter and writing was the only way to get any sort of communication from the bank. Has anyone else had this happen to them or know someone who has? Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do? This is a points card and I had a current balance of nearly 1M points ($10,000 value) which I feel I will now lose. I am very frustrated and aside from waiting to hear back from the bank from the letter I wrote them yesterday, I don't know where to go from here.

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

donkort — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:18:03 GMT

I sense there was some sort of fraud involved, some sort of identity thievery.

I'm sorry this happened to you.

Did they say anything about what you should put in the letter?

I would try to set up some sort of meeting with somebody from that bank.

I hope they conduct a thorough investigation.

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:34:56 GMT

@donkort wrote:
I sense there was some sort of fraud involved, some sort of identity thievery.

I'm sorry this happened to you.

Did they say anything about what you should put in the letter?

I would try to set up some sort of meeting with somebody from that bank.

I hope they conduct a thorough investigation.

I don't think it was identify theft as I put a freeze on all my credit bureau accounts. They told me to write a letter for more information which I already did. I'm waiting for a response but I'm guessing it will be a couple weeks before I hear back and I'm guessing it won't be very specific. I'm just shocked they just closed my account with no specific reason whatsoever and customer service will not give me any information over the phone.

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

thornback — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:37:54 GMT

Order your LexisNexis Consumer Full File Disclosure for starters to ensure no erroneous public record has been recorded there. If you find something, it can be disputed through LexisNexis.

https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/

Sorry for the closure, OP.

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

donkort — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:43:27 GMT

I'm sorry, too. I feel for you.

I hope you resolve this soon.

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

CreditCuriosity — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 23:05:04 GMT

Strange.. Hopefully you can get it worked out and doubt Barclay's persay want to lose your business with that kind of spend either. Wait for the letter and keeping pushing it there after to see what happened whether it was lexis nexus, ews, chexs, innovis, etc, etc. They should be able to tell you where they are seeing this information once letter is obtained if not now.

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

bourgogne — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 23:51:38 GMT

what is the limit and apr on the card? you have been running nearly 1m $ of business related transactions through a consumer card for how long?

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

Gmood1 — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 23:57:40 GMT

Some of these FIs, and possibly Barclays is sensitive to using a personal card for business.

If this had been Amex.They may not have even blinked!

Plenty of FIs would love to have that kind of spend run through their cards!

Hate that you may have lost your rewards! Always move them out of the account as soon as possible.

Never leave them laying around in the FI's grasp.

I move mine out as soon as they post

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:21:52 GMT

@bourgogne wrote:
what is the limit and apr on the card? you have been running nearly 1m $ of business related transactions through a consumer card for how long?

I don't know APR since I always pay card off in full. Limit is about $50K and have been using for about 4 years. Why wouldn't Barclays just give advance notice that they're closing my account on X date? And the reason (e.g. negative public record) seems strange to me given my background is clean.

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:24:35 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
. I'm just shocked they just closed my account with no specific reason whatsoever and customer service will not give me any information over the phone.

The lack of reason is very common in cases where they suspect (rightly or wrongly) something bad. They don't want to discuss it or allow others to reverse engineer what led to "detection". As either side can close the card for any (non-prohibited) reason, they are under no obligation to give meaningful details. Which sucks, but..... Hope you can cash out the points, but as others have said a lesson for everyone, it hardly ever makes sense to build up big balances with issuers: if they are transferable to different partners, then maybe, but not with this type of points.

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

Revelate — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:30:22 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
. I'm just shocked they just closed my account with no specific reason whatsoever and customer service will not give me any information over the phone.

The lack of reason is very common in cases where they suspect (rightly or wrongly) something bad. They don't want to discuss it or allow others to reverse engineer what led to "detection". As either side can close the card for any (non-prohibited) reason, they are under no obligation to give meaningful details. Which sucks, but..... Hope you can cash out the points, but as others have said a lesson for everyone, it hardly ever makes sense to build up big balances with issuers: if they are transferable to different partners, then maybe, but not with this type of points.

Yeah, I'm starting to get a little more worried about such things even with Chase now even if I'm starting to leverage some of my points there abusing their Expedia integration.

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

bourgogne — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:34:59 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@bourgogne wrote:
what is the limit and apr on the card? you have been running nearly 1m $ of business related transactions through a consumer card for how long?
I don't know APR since I always pay card off in full. Limit is about $50K and have been using for about 4 years. Why wouldn't Barclays just give advance notice that they're closing my account on X date? And the reason (e.g. negative public record) seems strange to me given my background is clean.

well that is not a low limit card you have there. I am sort of puzzled myself now that I know the limit, they obviously thought you were not a risk handing out that type of limit and if you have been doing the same kind of purchases with same players for that many years then it is indeed odd. there is no kind of public record that would do this short of a bk imo even if where were one. barclay is odd tech wise, they will pull an auto-pay even if the statement bal has been paid and will list an amount and take a payment even if there is nothing owing on the account. I find this a bit strange and the only reason I bring it up is that their back-end is far from perfect. at your level why are you not using business cards? if you did this kind of spend on a chase unlimited they would give your auto clis like candy, not close you down. you have to get this sorted and at least get your rewards extracted from them. talk about unprofessional, I would be livid

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

ChargedUp — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 01:14:35 GMT

Barclays (and Synchrony) are timid in some of the most bizzare ways. The loss of points sucks, but with your scores and spend, most every other lender would likely roll out the red carpet for you.

If your vendors accept Amex cards, I would go that route forward with one or two business cards. Once Amex knows your spend, they'll easily let you blow past any limit on the credit cards when necessary, or you could simply get one of the charge cards with no preset limit. Decide if cash back or MR's would be more valuable to you and go from there. (You easily spend well into Amex Black card territory, if the benefits would overcome the AF for you then I would start with the Platinum and wait for the inevitable upgrade invite.)

If they only take V/MC, I would look at Chase, BoA, or US Bank (or even Navy Federal CU if you qualify for membership). With your scores, Chase should give you a healthy SL and regular SP CLI's with that spend. BoA should give you a decent SL, and they're known for 5 digit SP CLI's every 91 days and VERY liberal CL's (They're my highest CL at $84.5K) and tend to max out at $99.9K. All the above are solid lenders that aren't known for the goofy AA excuses that Barclays tends to come up with.

I would assume any credit union would drool over $75K/month in spend, but some of the smaller ones are a bit timid at first. Navy Federal tends to buck that trend with great SL's on their cards, but they do (as most CU's) tend to have lower ceilings for possible CL's.

Who do you use for business banking BTW?

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

Shooting-For-800 — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 01:27:05 GMT

Why a personal card for business?

Perhaps they did not like that?

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

CreditInspired — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 01:41:12 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I have had the Barclaycard Arrival credit card for the past 4 years. I'm part of a family business and have been using this card to charge purchases I make with vendors. Typically, I charge about $75,000 per month on the card. I always pay the card in advance and often times pay the card ahead of when payments are due to keep my credit limit freed up. Last week I went to login and it said "Account Closed." I called customer service and they told me they would be sending me a letter. The representative read me the letter over the phone and it basically said "A negative public record information identified. a consumer credit reporting agency was not used in making this determination." I do not have any bad debt, never filed bankruptcy, never made a late payment, have never been sued and have an 800+ credit score. I checked with each bureau and there was nothing I could glean from my credit reports. I even searched public court records in my home state to see if perhaps Barclays had me confused with someone else. There were no criminal or civil cases with my name listed. It makes no sense to me what happened. I spoke to 2 supervisors who both told me I needed to write a letter and writing was the only way to get any sort of communication from the bank. Has anyone else had this happen to them or know someone who has? Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do? This is a points card and I had a current balance of nearly 1M points ($10,000 value) which I feel I will now lose. I am very frustrated and aside from waiting to hear back from the bank from the letter I wrote them yesterday, I don't know where to go from here.

Hello and welcome to myFICO

I echo everyone else's sentiment--it's awful that Barclays shut you down.

I just have a few questions. Since this is a family business, are there any AUs on this card? If yes, how many?

Is the family business incorporated? If yes, does any of the owners have a negative public record. I ask because a few months back I read something about a suit against an employer can affect the creditworthiness of its directors. I'll try to find that article.

Have you ever co-signed for someone, they defaulted, and you forgot about it.

Any student loan, child support, alimony due?

I'm just throwing some ideas out there because something just doesnt make sense.

Please keep us updated as to what the letter says. I'm surprised the CSR told you what's in the letter in a phone conversation because usually that does not happen.

GL2U

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 01:53:19 GMT

@CreditInspired wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I have had the Barclaycard Arrival credit card for the past 4 years. I'm part of a family business and have been using this card to charge purchases I make with vendors. Typically, I charge about $75,000 per month on the card. I always pay the card in advance and often times pay the card ahead of when payments are due to keep my credit limit freed up. Last week I went to login and it said "Account Closed." I called customer service and they told me they would be sending me a letter. The representative read me the letter over the phone and it basically said "A negative public record information identified. a consumer credit reporting agency was not used in making this determination." I do not have any bad debt, never filed bankruptcy, never made a late payment, have never been sued and have an 800+ credit score. I checked with each bureau and there was nothing I could glean from my credit reports. I even searched public court records in my home state to see if perhaps Barclays had me confused with someone else. There were no criminal or civil cases with my name listed. It makes no sense to me what happened. I spoke to 2 supervisors who both told me I needed to write a letter and writing was the only way to get any sort of communication from the bank. Has anyone else had this happen to them or know someone who has? Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do? This is a points card and I had a current balance of nearly 1M points ($10,000 value) which I feel I will now lose. I am very frustrated and aside from waiting to hear back from the bank from the letter I wrote them yesterday, I don't know where to go from here.

I just have a few questions. Since this is a family business, are there any AUs on this card? If yes, how many?

Is the family business incorporated? If yes, does any of the owners have a negative public record. I ask because a few months back I read something about a suit against an employer can affect the creditworthiness of its directors. I'll try to find that article.

Have you ever co-signed for someone, they defaulted, and you forgot about it.

Any student loan, child support, alimony due?

I'm just throwing some ideas out there because something just doesnt make sense.

Please keep us updated as to what the letter says. I'm surprised the CSR told you what's in the letter in a phone conversation because usually that does not happen.

GL2U

No AU's on this card and the business is a corporation. There is no negative public records on any of the 3 shareholders. I have co-signed for a child but they didn't default or have any late payments. No student loan, alimony, etc.

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

blindambition — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 01:53:59 GMT

Very sorry to read this OP. Hope you get it resolved.

I just closed my Uber. It's things like this that I know I won't miss Barclays. Good luck!

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 02:08:18 GMT

Other than LexisNexis are there any other services I should check for negative records? I'm not sure if anyone knows where Barclays obtains this info?

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

dssgaffler — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 02:14:03 GMT

thornback may have given the most likely cause. In my current employment, I review Lexis reports and many times the records contain false positives because you may share the same first and last name with someone who has been accused of a crime. If you review your record, you may see the cause of the closure. And not all banks review those records, but I can guarantee that Barclays is not the only one that does.

Re: Barclays just closed my account with a bizarre reason

bourgogne — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 02:16:11 GMT

come on, there is no info. its a smoke screen in hopes that you will just go away. do yourself a favor and don't. write to Rachel and cc Barry or fedex both of them. be professional, state the facts. no stories. ask to be reinstated

Chief Executive
Barry Rodrigues
Chief Executive Officer, cards and payments
125 S. West St.
Wilmington, DE 19801-5014
barry.rodrigues@barclays.com

Primary Contact
Rachel Mortensen
Assistant Vice President / Sr. Manager, Customer Experience
125 S. West St.
Wilmington, DE 19801-5014
rmortensen@barclaycardus.com