topic Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity in Credit Cards

BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

lhaymond — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 17:59:41 GMT

I had a 28 year account history on a BoA card with a $30,000 limit closed due to inactivity. I have read through some posts that suggest a reopening is possible, but the vast majority seem to suggest its hopeless. My score took a 56 point hit overnight. Anybody have any luck with BoA reopening? My wife and I have a checking account and another card with a smaller line. Any thoughts other than use and payoff my cards going forward? Thanks

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

pizzadude — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:12:40 GMT

@lhaymond wrote:
My score took a 56 point hit overnight.

This increased your revolving utilization ? What are your other cards / limits / balances ?

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

lhaymond — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:19:50 GMT

I have very little revolving credit. I have one Chase card with a $4,000 limit. Overall credit utilization 6%

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

Kforce — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:26:03 GMT

@lhaymond wrote:
I had a 28 year account history on a BoA card with a $30,000 limit closed due to inactivity. I have read through some posts that suggest a reopening is possible, but the vast majority seem to suggest its hopeless. My score took a 56 point hit overnight. Anybody have any luck with BoA reopening? My wife and I have a checking account and another card with a smaller line. Any thoughts other than use and payoff my cards going forward? Thanks

No real answer to your questions.

However curious as to how long with no use before they closed it ?

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

lhaymond — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:29:02 GMT

Several years.... clearly just my lack of education. Had I known I would have managed it.

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

CYBERSAM — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:32:05 GMT

Given that you can actually talk and escalate to BOA management, (unlike Cap1) I would say try to see if you can reactivate your card!

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

SouthJamaica — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:33:19 GMT

@lhaymond wrote:
I had a 28 year account history on a BoA card with a $30,000 limit closed due to inactivity. I have read through some posts that suggest a reopening is possible, but the vast majority seem to suggest its hopeless. My score took a 56 point hit overnight. Anybody have any luck with BoA reopening? My wife and I have a checking account and another card with a smaller line. Any thoughts other than use and payoff my cards going forward? Thanks

Welcome to the forum.

You should certainly try to get it reopened, whether other people do or do not think it is hopeless.

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:59:44 GMT

@SouthJamaica wrote:
@lhaymond wrote:
I had a 28 year account history on a BoA card with a $30,000 limit closed due to inactivity. I have read through some posts that suggest a reopening is possible, but the vast majority seem to suggest its hopeless. My score took a 56 point hit overnight. Anybody have any luck with BoA reopening? My wife and I have a checking account and another card with a smaller line. Any thoughts other than use and payoff my cards going forward? Thanks
Welcome to the forum.
You should certainly try to get it reopened, whether other people do or do not think it is hopeless.

Yes, and promise that you will start using it if reopened (and, if they do, do use it for a while!)

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

coldfusion — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 11:00:55 GMT

@Kforce wrote:
However curious as to how long with no use before they closed it ?

2 years puts you on their radar. They at least used to mail you a warning before taking AA that you needed to make a transaction by a stated date else the card would be closed.

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

Janneman — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 11:46:33 GMT

Synchrony closed my card early of last year by reporting me to CRAs that I was deceased...Not that they received some wrong info from SSA or some other ways, rather in the end it was found that the reason was that I didn't use the card for 10 months which sounded weird...Anyway, it took me a while to get the same card re-activated. However, in OP case, odds are none to impossible to get re-opened, but I would definitely try my best to get it re-opened. If not, then it would be just another HP to get another card with them. It did happen to me in the past when BOA closed my account out of blue even though card was being used regularly....No any negatives or anything with utilization or TCL as well....

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

CorpCrMgr1 — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 12:59:10 GMT

Try and try again. Your old card will report for ten years. Not certain if you bank with BoA or not, but I'd start and open a new card. Also, you may wish to put some recurring bill on all of your CC. Set them up with auto pay. Good luck!

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

xenon3030 — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 20:44:51 GMT

You may call a few times. If it did not work out, book an in-person appointment to see whether it can get restored. If you really need it and there would be no way to restore it, you may apply for the card(s) again.

Since your credit score dropped, I guess you were carrying some balances on some of your cards and closing a card resulted an increase in your debt to income ratio. If you want to proceed to credit card application, I suggest to pay your debt first to restore your credit score.

To avoid having such issues in future, you may place a small charge of 1$ on the dormant credit cards in each quarter (online Amazon GC). Also, you may get credit cards from multiple lenders to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. It would help to navigate your way, in case that one lender decides to close or do any AA.

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

NoMoreE46 — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 04:16:45 GMT

@lhaymond wrote:
I have very little revolving credit. I have one Chase card with a $4,000 limit. Overall credit utilization 6%

If your UTI is 6% with the $30000 BofA and $4000 Chase, your balance owed is about $2040. With the BofA closed, your UTI is now 51% (2040/4000).

Is this ballpark estimate close?

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

Jeffster1 — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 04:20:44 GMT

I agree with the "try to reopen" group. Escalate if you don't get satisfaction. The worst they can do is say no.

If you don't ask the question, the answer is always no.

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

lhaymond — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 13:17:20 GMT

I actually have a couple other zero balance cards with a combined limit of 17500 and a current balance on a "pay before x and zero interest" line with a $700 balance for a total UTI of 4%

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

NoMoreE46 — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 15:50:02 GMT

@lhaymond wrote:
I actually have a couple other zero balance cards with a combined limit of 17500 and a current balance on a "pay before x and zero interest" line with a $700 balance for a total UTI of 4%

Thanks for the clarification. That 56 point drop then really can't be as result of the closure if your uti is still low?

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

K-in-Boston — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 18:59:41 GMT

@NoMoreE46 wrote:
@lhaymond wrote:
I actually have a couple other zero balance cards with a combined limit of 17500 and a current balance on a "pay before x and zero interest" line with a $700 balance for a total UTI of 4%

Thanks for the clarification. That 56 point drop then really can't be as result of the closure if your uti is still low?

This is what I was thinking as I was reading through the thread. There either has to be another big factor happening, or this is a Vantage 3.0 credit score where minor changes like reporting a $2 balance can signal that you are an extremely high credit risk. Simply having an old account going from open to closed without another major factor (i.e. late payment, heavily increased utilization, previously open loans paid to $0, no longer have revolving credit account, etc.) is not going to cause that much of a swing in a FICO score.

If I remember correctly, VS3 often doesn't include some of the closed account metrics that FICO versions do, and if the rest of your cards are much newer for example, your age of oldest revolving account and average age of accounts could have taken a large hit with that scoring model. If that's the case, the good news is that this would likely only ever affect you if you needed a payday loan, wanted to rent-to-own some furniture, or were trying to rent an apartment from a landlord too cheap to pay for FICO scores.

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

lhaymond — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 20:27:15 GMT

Well that explains it then.... I have a couple retail store cards with 0 balances (both very new) and one Visa only a couple years old. I figured I had a $30k limit with a 0 balance - more than I would ever need. So my revolving credit went from almost 30 years history to 36 months. Do I understand you are saying this some how has a less severe impact on my credit? Thanks for the help

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

pizzadude — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 20:32:59 GMT

@lhaymond wrote:
Well that explains it then.... I have a couple retail store cards with 0 balances (both very new) and one Visa only a couple years old. I figured I had a $30k limit with a 0 balance - more than I would ever need. So my revolving credit went from almost 30 years history to 36 months. Do I understand you are saying this some how has a less severe impact on my credit? Thanks for the help

Closed cards will only impact your FICO score if your revolving utilization ( percentage and / or cards with balances ) increases as a result of losing the CL. Your AAoA will continue to factor in both open and closed accounts on your report.

Re: BoA Closed Card due to inactivity

K-in-Boston — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 20:34:26 GMT

@lhaymond wrote:
Well that explains it then.... I have a couple retail store cards with 0 balances (both very new) and one Visa only a couple years old. I figured I had a $30k limit with a 0 balance - more than I would ever need. So my revolving credit went from almost 30 years history to 36 months. Do I understand you are saying this some how has a less severe impact on my credit? Thanks for the help

For up to 10 years while the closed card is still reporting, its age will still be factored into both your average age and your oldest account for FICO models so there should not really be much of a change (if any) on FICO scores as a result. With Vantage scores, they may only factor in open accounts. If those new accounts were just reporting for the first time, that could also show a noticeable change in scoring but certainly not 56 points for FICO.

Long story short, FICO shouldn't be affected for quite a while and I would definitely try to see if they can reopen the account.